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THE FIRST HALF CENTURY 



OF 



Dartmouth College 



BEING 



4?l> Ti<-frvtt 



'^|i$i0^;uii{ ^:$Ikdimt$ ^il |}^t$^«iil |[itr[titi$ai|j;i;$. 



BY NATHAM OROSBY, 

OF THE CLASS OF 1820. 



READ BEFORE THE ALUMNI AT THE 
COMMENCEMENT IN 1875. 



PUBLISHED BY REQUEST AND ORDER OF THE ALUMNI. 



HANOVER : 

J. B. PARKER. 

1876. 



■J^ 



3 






FRINTED BY THE REPUBLICAN PRESS ASSOCIATION, CONCORD, N. H. 



Gentlemen^ Alumni of Dartinouth College: 

INTRODUCTION. 

I do not regard this as a lecture, or history of the college, 
but simply historical data which I have gathered in my read- 
ing, and my own personal reminiscences of the origin and life 
of the college to the end of the first fifty years of its existence. 
The college charter was obtained in 1769. Six years ago we 
celebrated its first centennial. I am of the class of 1820, just 
midway its first one hundred years. I had personal acquaint- 
ance with the second President Wheelock, and met Mr. Gray, 
who visited the college in 1837. Both. Vv^ere graduates in the 
first class in 177 1. I lived at one time near Rev. Mr. Milti- 
more, of Newbury, Mass., of the class of 17745 ^^d was 
familiarly acquainted with Nathaniel Adam.s, Esquire, of the 
class of 177-'^, who was the author of the "Portsmouth An- 
nals," and one of the founders of the New Hampshire Histori- 
cal Society in 1823. Caleb Bingham, of the class of 1782, 
furnished my boyhood's satchel with his "Young Ladies' 
Accidence," "American Preceptor," and "Columbian Orator," 
and Daniel Adams, of the class of 1797^ with his " Scholars' 
Arithmetic, or Federal Accountant." When I came to the 
study of Latin, I was introduced to the Latin Grammar of 
John Smith, a. m., of the class of 17735 ^i^d ^ professor of 
the college. 'When I entered in 1816, I found, as members of 
the faculty. Prof. Ebenezer Adams, of the class of 179I5 ^^d 
Prof. Roswell ShurliefF, class of 1799, with President Francis 
Brown, of the class of 1805. My childhood's pastor was Rev. 
Samuel Hidden, of the class of 1781, and the first lawyer I 
ever saw was James Otis Freeman, of the class of 1797. In 
fact, as I look over the catalogue, I find personal acquaint- 



4 

ances in almost all the classes of the first fifty years. My 
college life covered the period of the great legal controversy 
between the " University" and the " College," or, perhaps, 
rather, between the state and the college ; and I have thought 
it well to give the Alumni the history of certain academical 
events of that period, lest evidence of them shall soon fail to 
exist. 

The saying that " the world moves on," was never more 
impressively proven than in the history of Dartmouth college. 
We are here to-day, joyous in our goodly heritage. Vv"e take 
pride and pleasure in our distinguished faculty ; in these col- 
lege buildings ; in this same old common ; in the same old 
hills, river, and skies, with buoyant hope and expectation of 
future enlargement and glory ; its days of poverty and strug- 
gles for life all past ; its scant accommodations changed to 
elegant buildings, dormitories, observatory, library, and gyiTi- 
nasium ; several department schools ; large funds for scholar- 
ships, and donations changed in amount from a few days' labor 
in 177O5 to half a million dollars in 1875.* But this manhood 
had a wondrous birth and infancy, — an infancy fed from the 
paps of faith and prayer, and upheld by a Power stronger than 
fire, floods, or winter's frosts. 

CHARTER. 

The charter of Dartmouth college was granted by His 
Majesty King George the Third, at the solicitation of Gov. 

* Hon. Tappan Wentworth, of Lowell, Mass., who died June 12, last, gave bj' will his 
whole estate to the college, subject to a few legacies and annuities, and to its accumulation 
to half a million before application to uses of the college. The property consists mostly of 
real estate of great present as well as prospective value, in the business centre of the city. 
It has been valued by appraisers at nearly ;;^3oo, 000, having an income last year of about 
^20,000. Mr. Wentworth was born in Dover, N. H., and belonged to the Wentworth fam- 
ily, of which Gov. John Wentworth, who granted the charter, was also a member, both 
uniting in William Wentworth, the emigrant to America, whose descent is traced, through a 
distinguished line of Wentworlhs, to Rynold, in 1066. He was an eminent counsellor at 
law, and ex-membcr of congress. He received the honorary degree of Master of Arts here 
in 1850, where three of the Wentworth family have also received the degree of Doctor of 
Laws, Hon. John Wentworth, of Chicago, ex-member of congress, being one. Having lost 
his only child, a delightful son, twelve years old, twenty years ago, his love of learning, 
attachment to his native state, and pride in his eminent kindred who administered the gov- 
ernment of the state in its early history for forty-six years, undoubtedly moved him to this 
great endowment — his " life work," as he said to a friend. 



5 

John Wentworth, royal governor of New Hampshire, Decem- 
ber 13, 1769, who was moved thereto by Rev. Eleazer Whee- 
lock, of Lebanon, Connecticut. Dr. Wheelock asked a charter 
for "Dartmouth Acade77iy^^ but obtained a charter for "Dart- 
mouth College^ He had prepared his charter, and suggested 
trustees, but the governor changed the terms of it, and also 
the managing power. We cannot suppose these changes were 
made without courteous suggestion on the one part, and proper 
submission on the other. Governor Wentworth, who was a 
man of education and travel abroad, grasped fully Dr. Whee- 
lock's views and labors, in the united forces of religion and 
education, to civilize the Indian as well as to elevate their own 
countrymen. Dr. Wheelock had a great plan for the enlarge- 
ment of the borders of Zion, and the governor desired to turn 
it to the benefit of the people, and the honor of his adminis- 
tration. The charter was arranged, the trustees named, and 
the college established. The governor and four provincial 
officers were made trustees by the charter. Dr. Wheelock and 
six of his friends, mostly Connecticut clergymen, completed 
the board. Not a clergyman of New Hampshire was upon it. 

CLERGYMEN THE TEACHERS OF THE TIME. 

When this charter was granted there was only one academy 
(Byfield) in all New England, except perhaps the institution 
at Warren, R. I., — which was afterwards removed to Provi- 
dence and became a college, — and only two colleges, Harvard 
and Yale. From the settlement of the country, teachers of 
schools, and young men intending to go to college, were almost 
wholly instructed and prepared by clergymen. . The ministers of 
that day v/ere generally graduates, and some of them became 
distinguished teachers. Dr. Wheelock had been a most suc- 
cessful preacher in many parts of New England during the Great 
Awakening of 1740, — a preacher after Jonathan Edwards's 
own heart. He had become so universally known as a man of 
great power as well as of great piety, that he had no difficulty 
in obtaining students when he opened his house as a teacher. 

Many of the clergymen of Dr. Wheelock's time were men 
of extraordinary culture and power. They came forth from 



and had been trained in a long line of men of Puritan thought 
and opinion. They had devoted themselves to the two great 
twin doctrines, of freedom in faith and in government. The 
earliest ministers among the Pilgrim and Puritan emigrants 
had been driven from their native lands because they had 
made themselves obnoxious to both church and state by their 
independent and persistent discussion of the great gospel 
inherent right of man to believe for himself and to govern 
himself. They were men of learning, men of enthusiasm and 
courage, and fled hither, bearing the precious seed of their 
new and better way to rule and to live to this nev/ and virgin 
soil, where time and space and a growing people would give 
them a home and a hearing. These men at once, as the first 
living: breath of freedom, established schools along-side the 
pulpit, as the key-stone of the arch upon which their new 
temple of freedom could rest and abide. They prepared teach- 
ers for the schools, fitted young men for college, became pro- 
fessors and lecturers, and gave sentiment and tone to public 
opinion and thought in sermons, addresses, pamphlet discus- 
sions, and wide-spread correspondence. They visited the 
schools, catechised the children, and expounded the new gos- 
pel of freedom to the people, as next in importance to the 
gospel of grace — a gospel which gave " God his due, and 
Caesar his, and the people theirs." Having never been allowed 
to hold civil office or vote in the old country, they abstained 
from both for many years in the early history of the colonies. 
Tiie future historian of our colonial life will find facts and 
influence enough to award to the clergymen, before the revolu- 
tion, the maximum share in originating, building up, and sus- 
taining the public sentiment and courage which accomplished 
our independence. 

The same wonderful talent, learning, and consecration of 
the early clergy to the cause and growth of learning, religion, 
and freedom, continued down to the early years of the present 
century. Clergymen were as distinct from the people then, as 
Catholic priests are now from their adherents. There were 
half a dozen of such old clergymen In my neighborhood in my 
young years. They were grave men, in long coats and vests 
and small-clothes, with knee- and shoe-buckles, with the tri- 



cornered or cocked-up hat, as it was called. They rode through 
the towns on horseback, carrying in one hand a long cane as 
a badge of office, and a reminder to Rosinante to be quiet at 
times as "well as grave always. The children knew them, 
thought of their catechism, and gave them a wide berth — stood 
still and straight as soldiers, made obeisance, and stared them 
out of sight. 

DR. WHEELOCK AND THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

Dr. Wheelock was the great grandson of Rev. Ralph Whee- 
lock, of Shropshire, who was one of those eminent non-con- 
formist preachers, and, suffering persecution for dissenting 
from the established religion, came to New England in 1637, 
and settled in Dedham, Mass. The Doctor was the only son 
of Ralph and Ruth (Huntington) Wheelock, and was born in 
Windham, Conn., in May, 171 1, was graduated at Yale in i733) 
and was ordained and settled over the North Society in Leb- 
anon, Conn., in i735- His earnest and eloquent labors soon 
aroused great religious interest among his people. The "Great 
Awakening of 1740," as it is now historically called, soon fol- 
lowed, and the whole country became absorbed in the most 
wonderful religious excitement, perhaps phrensy, known in our 
history or the history of the church. Dr. Wheelock took a place 
in the very front rank of the preachers and agitators of this 
religious earthquake. He was a live man from the commence- 
ment of his ministry. He had heard the thunderings of White- 
field, and the mighty reasonings of Edwards at Northampton 
upon justification by faith and not by works — a living faith, 
and not dead works. Ministers had been settled by towns over 
parishes for life, and the churches were sunk in a lifeless ortho- 
doxy. Pastors and peoples found themselves unequally yoked. 
Great minds became inactive for want of appreciative hearers ; 
and, again, cultivated congregations starved for mental food. 
Dull formality and spiritual pride were fast removing the Puri- 
tan landmark of salvation by faith in the Son of God. The 
half-way covenant by baptism was taking the place of the new 
birth as a qualification for church membership, and, if a bap- 
tized person was refused the communion, although leading an 



8 

irreligious life, the refusing watchful pastor was open to pros- 
ecution for damages in a civil suit. Spiritual death and deso- 
lation were fast darkening the fair fields of Puritan labor and 
expectation. All the churches were now shaken up by the 
great question of a new birth, and whether such " new lights" 
as Whitefield, Wheelock, Pomroy, and others should be suffered 
to preach in churches or to congregations not their own, caus- 
ing general disquiet among pastors and their people. Many 
ministers, and some of the people in most parishes, objected. 
Pulpits were refused them, and suits were brought against them 
for preaching without permission in parishes not their own, 
and also for refusing to admit to the communion persons of 
irreligious life when baptized. But the work went on, mul- 
titudes were born into the kingdom, and a clearer line between 
the righteous and the wicked on earth was drawn and scrip- 
turally maintained ; and although many good men long doubted 
the purity of intention and the legitimate success of the Awakeii- 
ers as ambassadors of Heaven, the history of the church before 
and since the Great Awakening will compel the record of that 
mysterious yet fruitful period as a new departure in the life, pu- 
rity, and power of the church. A recovery of lost vitality, and 
the introduction of a higher Christian life, bear date from that 
spiritual upheaving. It was like the great revival by Peter 
and John at the Pentecost, in the Sandwich Islands a few 
years ago, and now late in England and Scotland under Moody 
and Sankey. 

Dr. Wheelock was eloquent and attractive, energetic, fear- 
less, and laborious. He travelled from town to town, and 
preached two or three sermons almost daily. His journal 
from Oct. 19 to Nov. 16, 1741, shows him in twenty towns, 
and that he preached forty sermons, besides his " conferences," 
" counsels," &c. It is said he preached in one year one hini- 
dred more sermons than there were days in the year.* 

Dr. Trumbull sa3''S, — "He was a gentleman of comely figure, 
of a mild, winning aspect; his voice smooth and harmonious — 
the best, by far, that I ever heard. He had the entire com- 

* Sec --Iw. Qy. Tvr^/jvVr, August, 1837. 



9 

mand of it. His gesture was natural, but not redundant. His 
preaching and addresses were close and pungent, and yet win- 
ning beyond almost all comparison, so that his audience would 
be melted even into tears before they were aware of it." 

I have thus introduced to your consideration the character of 
the early ministers of the country, and the Great Awakening, 
that you might gain a proper knowledge and appreciation of 
the distinguished founder of our college. The intolerance 
which drove his great-grandfather from Shropshire gave char- 
acter and tenacity to his love of freedom. His love and zeal 
for Christ and his cause gave him pilgrim self-denial and 
power. His first great work, as an itinerant freacher^ raised 
him to the high position of yoke-fellow of Whitefield in the 
Great Awakening, and shadowed forth his great good will to 
man, however and wherever his Lord and Master might call 
him. 

BETTER FACILITIES FOR EDUCATION CALLED FOR. 

The awakening sifted the ministry, caused marked denomi- 
national lines, and stimulated the Puritan element to new 
securities as well as enlargement. The population of all New 
England amounted then to about 70O5OOO ? the distant forests 
were being subdued by a prosperous, hardy people, and the 
early settlements were calling for more culture and social 
pleasures. Clergymen were more than ever stimulated to 
educate the people to the plane of ability to judge safely the 
great questions in theology, as v/ell as politics, involved in the 
discussions and decisions of those experimental days. Dr. 
Wheelock lost no time in marking out his work. He quieted 
himself down to the ordinary duties of a pastor again. But 
his parish was small, and his people would only about half 
pay his little salary ;* so, minister-like, he opened his house 
for a school, and had no lack of pupils. 

* Rev. Hugh Adams, of Durham, N. H., who continued there in the ministry from 1718 
to 1750, petitioned the Provincial Assembly in 1738, that " a neglect to pay a minister may be 
made penal, and presentable by the grand jury, as it was in Massachusetts, which he con- 
sidered the principal reason why the people of that province had been proportionably spared 
from the throat pestilence, and other impoverishing, more than New Hampshire." 

—N. H. Hist. Col., ■2y). 



10 



EDUCATIONAL POVERTY. 



It is well to look for a moment at the educational opportun- 
ities in the country at the commencement of Dr. Wheelock's 
school. Not an academ3'', not a medical school for fifty years 
after, a law college or theological seminary for seventy years. 
Young men could reach a preparation for professional life only 
by overcoming the greatest discouragements. The clergymen 
were generally graduates, and were the teachers of the young 
men and women of their various parishes, so as to fit them to 
become teachers of the common schools. Some clergvmen 
kept their classics bright, and fitted the young men for college, 
while others became distinguished as theologians, and attracted 
the graduates for preparation for the ministry. Dr. Woods, of 
Boscawen, partially or w^holly fitted a hundred young men for 
college, Daniel and Ezekiel Webster, j[)ar nohile fratrtiDi. — a 
brace of eminent pupils, — being of the number. Dr. Spring 
of Newburyport, Edwards of Northampton, and Emmons of 
Franklin, made academies after the Roman and Greek pattern, 
and Dr. Burton, in the quiet little town of Thetford, Vt., sent 
out over sixty ministers, many of them rising to eminent stand- 
ing in theology. Rev. Thomas Parker, a learned divine, in- 
structed ten to fifteen yearly for the pulpit, within fifty years 
after the arrival of the Mayflower. 

INDIAN CIVILIZATION. 

In December, 1743, Samson Occom, a Mohegan Indian, 
nineteen years old, came along and knocked at the Doctor's 
school for admission. The good Doctor received him, and 
kept him in his family, and educated him four or five years. 
Occom was quick to learn, ready to receive the benefit of 
civilized culture, and became " a preacher of distinction." Dr. 
Wheelock now formed his new and great idea of Christianizing 
the Indians by educating them with white men, w*ho would 
return with them to the forests as missionaries. 

There had prevailed from the early settlement of the country 
the sentiment that the emigrants must Christianize these hea- 
then Indians, not only because they ought to be Christianized, 
but because the emigrants were taking their lands by purchase 



II 

or power, and driving them farther back into the wilderness. 
So fixed was this sentiment in the hearts of the King and the 
agents of the grantees of lands in the new world, and the 
people here, that recognition of the obligation and covenant 
of effort to that end ^vere incorporated into royal grants, and 
even into the charter of the college in 1769. 

MOOR'S CHARITY SCHOOL. 

Dr. Wheelock's new idea of a better way to convert the 
Indians filled his soul like the " Great Awakening." It was 
another field of religious effort, equal to his great capacities. 
He called in young Indian men and women from various tribes 
to his school, and put his young missionary students to instruct 
them and meliorate their manners and habits, to unforest them. 
He appealed to the benevolent to aid him in support of the 
school. His pulpit power and persuasion, his faith and zeal, 
gave life and direction to the great sentiment at home and 
abroad, that for his lands the Indians must have the gospel, 
and that his new plan would accomplish the great end. He 
had solicited certain clergymen to stand as trustees, says 
President Styles, in his diary. Public sentiment widened and 
increased as his pupils and missionaries multiplied. The com- 
bined missionary power of the white and red man seemed full 
of promise, and gave strength to Christian faith and zeal. 
Occom was sent to England and Scotland in 1762, as a speci- 
men minister of his Indian school, to preach the same gospel, 
to show its power upon the wild men of the forest,* and to 
pray for aid in the great work. Occom was received with 
great enthusiasm by the nobility, clergymen, and people, and 
returned with nearly 12,000 pounds, from his collections abroad. 
Joshua Moor, a neighbor and friend of Dr. Wheelock, had given 
a house and a few acres of land for his school, which had 
taken the name of " Moor's Charity School." The legislatures 
of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire granted 
aid, and he received cordial and flattering approbation of the 
leading clergymen in Connecticut and other states, half a dozen 

" As an exhibition to the people of England of what Christianity^ would do for the nations 
of North America." DeFo7-est' s Hist, of hid. of Conn., 458. 



12 

governors, various judges of courts, lawyers, merchants, and 
men in high governmental positions.* The Doctor had mission- 
aries out among the tribes, who sent in pupils, so that his num- 
bers increased to twenty-five, and his Indian schoolmasters at 
work in wigwams counted more than half a dozen. 

The second decade of promised success, however, developed 
more than one worm at the root. It began to appear that the 
Indian graduates were not more than half converted ; that a 
return to the woods revived too readily their love of hunting 
and fishing, the chase and sports of Indian life, the vagrancy 
and cruelties of old habits and old grudges. The political diffi- 
culties between the colonies and the mother country, between 
the royal governors and the people, had become serious, and 
the tribes were taking sides with the King against the colonies, 
and they now became suspicious of the new interest manifested 
in them, and doubted Christian love and men. It was appar- 
ent, moreover, that the Indian pupil was impatient of the re- 
straints of civilized life and cultivated society, and hungered for 
the wild viands and free air of his tribe — very ominous facts. 

FEARS OF FAILURE. 

Dr. Wheelock seemed now to fear that the second great 
effort of his life might come to an inglorious end ; that his 
great idea of union and harmony in the education of English 
and Indian missionaries and schoolmasters might ere long fail 
of promised and anticipated accomplishment, and that the 
donors and sympathizers might hold him in derision. They 
had considered the plan, and approved ; had given sympathy, 
prayers, and funds ; and were looking with great interest for 
much of the success w^iich the Doctor's enthusiastic letters 
and "Narratives" led them to expect, — while he had reason- 
able forebodings that Indian infirmities, prejudices, customs, and 
indolence, as well as their probable position of enemies in the 
threatening strife for independence of the colonies, matters 
wholly beyond his control^ would ere long bring an end to his 
school as an ex^iloded idea. lie therefore devised and deter- 

* See historical papers, &c., in " The 150th Anniversary of the Organization of the 
Church in Columbia, Conn., Oct., 1S66 " (Dr. Wheelock's church), for list of names. 



13 

mined on a new departure, a new and more hopeful effort. 
We now come to the third and last great effort of his life. 

NEW DEPARTURE. 

Dr. Wheelock had now been a pastor in Lebanon twenty- 
five years. The men about him were eminent in politics, in 
theology, and in general literature and the sciences. No town 
in Connecticut, or elsewhere even, could boast of having pro- 
duced so many great and good men during that century as this 
same Lebanon. Among them was our distinguished Jeremiah- 
Mason, one of the learned and eloquent advocates for the col- 
lege in the great lawsuit. He v/as born in Lebanon during 
Dr. Wheelock's pastorate, and may have been baptized by him — 
a man of more legal knowledge and power than any other this 
side of Chief Justice Marshall. And Dr. Wheelock was the 
eminent man among these Lebanon men, and must not fail in 
judgment or executive power. His first great idea for Lidian 
conversion must not fail. He must move his school and quit 
his pastorate. He astonished himself by his resolution, and 
the world by his purpose, to remove his school into the wil- 
derness. He must take his wife from friends of culture and 
refinement, and his sons and daughters, growing up to matu- 
rity, from polished circles of friendship, to the rough life of 
frontiersmen. 

"How can I leave thee, Paradise.^" he might well have 
exclaimed. "And how can I see my plan, the great idea 
of my life, and the labor of my best years, come to naught.'^" 
he did ask himself. " This school must not fail to accom- 
plish its work. These funds must not be wasted or I'eturned. 
By the help of God, this will I do : I will take it into the 
woods.* I will let the young men of the forest bring their 
bow and gun and fishing-rod, that they may indulge in their 
native sports. Maybe the transition from the woods to open 
fields, from their huts to our dwellings^ from skins and 
blankets to our careful costumes, from their wild life to our 

* "Abetter place for an Indian seminary than the more thickly settled colony of Con- 
necticut" — {De Forest), — although there were then over thirteen hundred Indians in Conn. 
The new idea seemed to be an endeavor to reach the distant tribes. 



cultivated habits, is too great a trial of their independence 
and patience. I will train, also, in their company, and along 
with them, young men from among us who desire to get an 
education, and become missionaries among the Indians. They 
will assimilate in thought and habits, and the Indian shall 
take back to the forest a yoke-fellow in the great work of 
education and evangelization." 

Dr. Wheelock now announced to his church and the world, 
as early as 1767, that he should take his school and remove to 
a place nearer the Indians, and should unite with it the func- 
tions of an academy. A strange idea — an unheard-of thought — 
supremely ridiculous ! An academy in the woods, remote 
froin population on one side, and with a forest upon the other ! 
Harvard college in Massachusetts, and Yale in Connecticut, 
had both been located w^ith close access to the large towns on 
a long line of coast, and were called for by a growing people, 
demanding better facilities of education. But who asks for an 
academy beyond the pale of civilization, where no roads meet, 
or church bell is heard ; where the crow caws, and the wolf 
howls.f* 

REMONSTRANCE FROM HIS CHURCH. 

When Dr. Wheelock announced his intention to remove his 
school to some region nearer the Indians, proposals were made 
to him from various places to induce him to remove thither. 
Lands, buildings, subscriptions of funds, and sympathy were 
tendered to him in the spirit of very considerable rivalry. But 
the most touching appeal came to him from his church, to re- 
main where "Your school has flourished remarkably, grown 
apace. From small beginnings, how very considerable it has 
become — evidence that the soil and climate suit the institution. 
If you transplant it, you run the risk of stinting its growth, per- 
haps of destroying its life, or, at least, of changing its nature 
and missing the pious aim you have all along had in view," 
as the letter from the church to him of the date of June 29, 
1767, pathetically sets forth. The letter further says, — " This is 
its birthplace ; here it was kindly received and nourished, when 
no other door was set open for it ; here it found friends when 
almost friendless — yea, when despised and contemned abroad. 



15 

. If you remove the school from us, you at the same time take 
away our minister, the light of our eyes and the joy of our 
hearts, under whose ministrations we have sat with great de- 
light. Must, then, our dear and worthy pastor and his pious 
institution go from us together? Alas! shall we be deprived 
of both in one day? We are confident you will not be dis- 
pleased at our addressing you, but that you w^ould rather think 
it strange if we should altogether hold our peace, when we 
understand it is still in doubt, both v^ith yourself and friends, 
where to fix your school, whether at Albany, or more remote 
among the Indian tribes," &c. 

SELECTION OF LOCATION. 

It would seem, from the date of this letter, that Dr. Wheelock 
must have filled up two or three years in maturing his plans of 
removal, and in the selection of his future location. Undoubt- 
edly many places were carefully examined by him, letters 
written, overtures made, and probabilities of success laboriously 
scrutinized. He at length accepted the terms arranged by 
Gov. John Wentworth and probably by Gov. Benning Went- 
worth, resolved to remove to Hanover, and prepared his 
charter. Future research for the correspondence of the time 
among the parties will perhaps develop other reasons for his 
choice of Hanover. Vermont v^as not in a condition to give 
a charter. Massachusetts and Connecticut had colleges, and 
would naturally enough at that time object to another. Gov. 
John Wentworth, after a standing refusal of Gov. Benning 
Wentworth for a dozen years to give a charter to the clergy- 
men of the eastern part of the state, found his opportunity, not 
only to encourage the great zeal of Dr. Wheelock in his Indian 
conversion, but to rid himself of the plan of his ministerial 
neighbors, which undoubtedly favored independency too much 
to secure his confidence. It might seem quite remarkable 
that Gov. Benning Wentworth should have refused a charter 
to the clergymen of eastern New Hampshire, and yet give five 
hundred acres of land in Hanover to Dr. Wheelock and his 
Connecticut clergymen when Gov. John Wentworth had con- 
cluded to give him a charter. But the old feeling between the 



i6 

English church and the Puritans was especially rife in New 
Hampshire, the royal governors and official men in Portsmouth 
being anxious to head off the prevalence of Congregationalism 
and establish Episcopacy in the colony. The charters had 
reserved the best pines for the King's masts, and also lands for 
the church — a kind of seal of subjection to King and Bishop. 

HOW THE CHARTER WAS OBTAINED. 

A very singular fact is stated by the late Dr. Allen, who was 
President of the University, and son-in-law of the second 
President Wheelock, touching the granting of the charter of 
the college. Dr. Allen had possession of the Wheelock letters 
and papers, and many of the papers belonging to the college 
archives proper. In his " Memoir of Rev. Eleazer Wheelock, 
D. D.," found in the August number of the American Quarterly 
Register for 1837, he says, — "Among these papers is an 
original copy of the charter, which Dr. Wheelock caused to 
be prepared and presented to Gov. Wentworth. In this the 
title is ' Dartmouth Academy,' instead of ' Dartmouth College.' 
The words are, — ' We appoint our trusty and well-beloved 
Eleazer Wheelock, Doctor in Divinity, the founder of the said 
school' (meaning Moor's Indian Charity School), 'to be presi- 
dent of the said Academy.'' In the charter the words are the 
same, except the substitution of the word college for both school 
and academy^ and this probably by mistake of the transcriber J' 

This change of name must have been rather by order of the 
governor, that there might not in the future be any doubt as 
to the prerogatives of the institution in establishing professor- 
ships and conferring degrees. Dr. Wheelock had called his 
institution a school: the school ^ as still to exist; and he now 
wished to add to it another institution which could, without 
question, confer degrees, as he was thereafter to educate men 
for the ministry, as well as Indians for teachers. Academies 
were not known ; and although the term was well defined in 
Greek and Roman history, but quite different in character from 
his proposed seminary, yet the name would be honorable, and 
with the powers of a college would be likely to challenge less 
hostility and remark if he did not take the name of college, as 



17 

if equal to Harvard and Yale. The clergymen in the eastern 
part of New Hampshire had asked for an academy or college, 
and been refused. He perhaps thought best to ask only for an 
academy ; but when the governor came seriously to the work 
of giving a charter for a literary institution to the people of 
his beloved state, he changed the charter to meet his views of 
an institution. " He struck out one or two clauses," says Dr. 
Allen, " and omitted some of the names of trustees mentioned 
in the charter, even the Bishop of London, whose name had 
been agreed upon, and inserted names of civil officers without 
agreement." 

Dr. Allen says, — "It appears further, from the negotiation 
with the governor, that Dr. Wheelock proposed to remove 
his school to New Hampshire, on condition of obtaining an 
act of incorporation of Dartmouth academy^ and satisfactory 
grants of land ; and that Gov. Wentworth gave a charter of 
Dartmouth college^ with a liberal endowment from the govern- 
ment and from individuals." " The long preamble to the char- 
ter," says Dr. Allen, " is to be considered only as a history of 
Moor's Charity School, and of the circumstances which led 
Dr. Wheelock to apply for a charter of the college, and not 
proving at all that the school was merged' in the college." 
The power of the college trustees over the school was at once 
called in question by the English and Scotch friends of the 
school, as the school had been committed to certain London 
trustees, who had no recognition in the charter. Dr. Whee- 
lock announced to them that the school remained as before, 
without legal connection with the college ; that he was presi- 
dent of both, and could resign one and hold the other. The 
two institutions were managed, financially, with a slight mix- 
ture of confusion, but essentially under the president and 
trustees of the college, till 1807, when an act of incorporation 
was obtained for the " school," and the trustees of the college 
forever after were to be trustees of the " school ;" but the funds 
of the "school" were to be kept distinct, and applied accord- 
ing to the designated uses of the donors. 



i8 



PETITION OF CLERGYMEN IN EASTERN NEW HAMPSHIRE. 

In 175S? the Congregational ministers of the Province of 
New Hampshire, at their annual convention at the house of 
Rev. Mr. Pike, in Somersworth, " taking into consideration 
the great advantages which may arise to both church and state 
from the erecting an academy or college in this province," 
unanimously voted " to petition the governor for a charter," 
and appointed eight of their number to wait on the governor 
and present their petition, then prepared and signed by Joseph 
Adams, moderator. At the meeting of the convention the 
following year, at the house of Rev. Mr. Adams in Newington, 
the committee reported, verbally, " their proceedings and con- 
versations with the governor upon said affair, by which, not- 
withstanding the governor manifests some unwillingness at 
present to grant a charter agreeable to the convention, yet 
there remains some hope that, after maturer consideration and 
advice of council. His Excellency will grant such a charter as 
will be agreeable to us and our people." Thereupon, the same 
committee, consisting of Rev. Messrs. Adams, Pike, Cotton, 
Parsons, Gookin, Langdon, and Haven, were charged " to do 
everything which to them shall appear necessary in the afore- 
said affair in behalf of the convention, and, moreover, to con- 
sult upon any other measures for promoting the education of 
youth, and advancing good literature in the province," &c. 

Messrs. Farmer and Moore, compilers of the first volume of 
"■ Collections, Topographical," &c., " relating principally to 
New Hampshire," say, that " In 1763, the plan of the venera- 
ble Dr. Eleazer Wheelock was made known to the conven- 
tion, and received their hearty concurrence. The foundation 
of Dartmouth college was soon after laid by the persevering 
exertion of Wheelock and his friends." They also say that 
" a spirit of jealousy seems to have existed against their plan 
[the convention plan], and though they frequently urged the 
utility and necessity of a college upon the officers of the gov- 
ernment, no charter could be obtained until that granted Whee- 
lock in 1769." In " Annals of Portsmouth," Adams says, — 
" Gov. B. Wentworth would have granted the charter, if the 



19 

college could have been put under the direction of the Bishop 
of London."* 

DR. WHEELOCK SUCCESSFUL. 

Dr. Wheelock must have made annual visits, to obtain funds, 
to the good men in New Hampshire, and must have pressed 
his Indian enterprise upon the governors and clergymen of the 
state. The ministers were urging the governor for a charter ; 
but for reasons apparent or concealed, the governor withheld 
his gYa.nt J^rom them^ and gave it to him. How this result 
was brought about, and why a college for New Hampshire 
should have been granted by a New Hampshire governor to 
Connecticut management, is, at this remote day, somewhat of a 
problem. The clerg3''men of eastern New Hampshire had 
urged their claim on the governor for a dozen years. They 
were the early ministers, had built up their churches, and 
cherished the interests of learning ; they saw that the state must 
build up for herself, as Massachusetts had done early and Con- 
necticut later, institutions of learning, and must keep pace 
with the growing sentiment that freedom must find foundation 
and support in the education of the people. They urged in their 
petition " the great advantages of learning, and the difficulties 
which attend the education of youth in this province, by rea- 
son of our distance from any of the seats of learning." They 
probably hoped to locate the institution in Exeter or Concord ; 
at any rate, not in the woods, where there were neither people 

* The plan of Dr. Wheelock, laid before the convention, was undoubtedly the same 
indorsed and recommended the same year by twenty-five ministers of Connecticut, and re- 
lated vvrhoUy to his " Indian School " and efforts for their civilization, for we find three years 
afterwards, in 1765, he obtained the approbation of his " Indian Charity School " and of his 
labors from six governors of different states, five judges of state courts, twelve men holding 
high civil office, clergymen of different states, merchants, lawyers, and doctors — in all, 
seventy. The document bears date New Jersey. His school embraced some twenty scholars, 
about half being Indians, and in 1765 two were approved as missionaries, and nine Indians 
as schoolmasters, by a commission appointed for the purpose. We get a glimpse of the Doc- 
tor's restless diligence to make his school a success by the recommendations thus given, and 
also by entries of donors' names in his "Narrative of Moor's Indian Charity School." His 
donors were found among the rich men of the country all along the coast, and obtained only 
by personal appeal and influence. Frontiersmen would give him little sympathy and less 
aid, having m.Qr&fear than love of the Indian. Benevolence seemed to them in conflict with 
their protection. It was a trial of their Puritan faith to be kind and sympathetic towards 
those who had cruelly resisted their progress for a hundred years, and who still gave the 
remote settler great anxiety for his safety. 



I 



20 

nor roads, and not to have any voice in its board of direction. 
The '"jealousy" spoken of vs^as undoubtedly sharp and decisive, 
for in the charter, when granted, not one of those New Hamp- 
shire clergymen was given a place in the board of trustees, 
nor did one ever find a place in the board. 

HANOVER SELECTED. N. H. GRANTS. 

After two or three years spent in conference and inquiry, 
Dr. Wheelock selected Hanover, obtained his charter, and 
prepared for the removal of his family. Hanover, bordering 
on Connecticut river, was one of the towns which became 
involved in the controversy relating to the " New Hampshire 
Grants." The first Governor Wentworth granted one hundred 
and thirty-six towns west of the Connecticut river, towards 
the Hudson, under his construction of his commission, in ^vhat 
is now Vermont. Fifteen other towns on the east side of the 
river, and beyond the line of the Mason grant, in the centre of 
which was Hanover, were also complicated in the sad quarrel 
about the "New Hampshire Grants," technically so called. 
New York* claimed some part of the same territory, as did 
also Massachusetts, and the settlers were annoyed and harassed 
by the conflicting titles and jurisdiction of the three states. 
These disaffected towns were in a state of turmoil and conflict 
for fifteen years before Vermont was quieted in her present 
boundaries, and more than twenty before the state was ad- 
mitted to the Union. 

Some important interests of the college were involved in this 
controversy, obliging the Faculty to mingle in the deliberations 
and proceedings of the day. Connecticut people had settled 
the towns on both sides of the river, and, under the vexations 
of disputed titles, naturally enough sympathized, e7t masse^ 
in the combinations formed to protect their interests and ad- 
vance their convenience. Hanover was well situated to become 
the central figure, the rallying-point and power, in the struggle. 
Here was the college, and men of influence and learning. 

* The Earl of Dunmore, while governor of New York, granted land in Vermont to the 
amount of 511,900 acres, all of which had been previously granted by Gov. Benning Went- 
worth of New Hampshire. — Vervtont Records, vol, 2, p. 94, note. 



21 

Young men from all the country around gathered here for edu- 
cation, and their friends were expected to support the institu- 
tion, and build up the character and material interests of the 
place. 

The president's parish in Lebanon was known as " Lebanon 
Crank." Parishes were then quasi corporations. Governor 
Wentworth had given the college 500 acres of land, and the 
state had given Dr. Wheelock, by statute, special jurisdiction 
over three miles square. This territory received the name of 
Dresden* In subsequent proceedings, Dresden was often con- 
sidered a town, but Hanover and the state ignored her corpo- 
rate existence as well as name. 

Most of the public demonstrations for forming a new state out 
of the Grants occurred towards the close of the life of the first 
president, but they showed quite conclusively that the faculty 
of the college were participants in various plans to make Han- 
over a central point.f While Vermont maintained a sort of 
jurisdiction, the people of the Grants were restless, provoked, 
rebellious, sometimes asking aid of the states, and sometimes 
threatening to join Canada in loyalty to the King. At one time a 
state was projected by union of the Grants on the Vermont side 
and thirty-five towns on the New Hampshire side, to be called 
New Connecticut ; at another, the sixteen river towns asked 
to be received by Vermont into their state, and notified New 
Hampshire they had left New Hampshire ; and still another, 
sixteen towns on the east side and as many on the west side 
of the river made an effort to form a state ; and once the whole 
Grants of the west side of the river wished to be joined to 
New Hampshire. I In most of the schemes for a new state 
Prof. Woodward was a prominent participator, with other 
Dresden gentlemen, in contemplation of making Dresden a 

* Belknap says, — " The name of Dresden was given to the district belonging to Dart- 
mouth college," and the petition of the president to the legislature of New Hampshire was, 
" to have three miles square set ofif from Hanover and Lebanon as a distinct parish, to be 
under the immediate jurisdiction of Dartmouth college, agreeable to a promise in writing, 
under the hands of the Board of Trustees." N. H. Prov. Papers, vol. 7, p. 280. 

f Belknap, New Hamp., vol. 2, p. 341-343. 

% Vermont conducted its military operations during the war independent of the United 
States, raised and paid its own troops, emitted and redeemed bills of credit, and paid its 
own debts. Noah Webster' s Atn. Selection, 3d part 121, ed. 1793. 



22 

Stats Capital. It was said the people had a right, after the 
declaration of independence, to form themselves in such new 
communities as they pleased ; that rejecting allegiance to the 
King- left them nowhere^ and they might as well claim local 
freedom, and escape the tyranny of New York, Massachusetts, 
and New Hampshire. 

These disturbances gave opportunity to a few leading pa- 
triots in the Grants to cheat the Governor of Canada and the 
Captain-General of the British forces there into an alliance of 
protection, or rather of suspension of warfare, on the Grants 
during the war. The Haldimand correspondence and other 
papers, lately published in Vermont, prove that during nego- 
tiations for exchange of prisoners on the Canada lines, sugges- 
tions and intimations sprang up between our commissioners 
and the British commander, that the Grants, enraged at their 
oppressions, would prefer to remain loyal to the King, and so 
escape the desolations of the war. The negotiations did not 
embrace more than half a dozen Vermonters, who kept Wash- 
ington informed of the movement, and thus the Grants and 
the college were spared the tramp of the army, and the devas- 
tations of invading forces which remained in Canada. 

Mr. Y/alton, compiler of the " Records of Governor and 
Council of Vermont," vol. i, p. 278, says, — "There are other 
circumstances which indicate that the officers of the college 
corporation were veiy active in the projected union, if not the 
originators of it. The first convention was in Hanover, and 
its committee asked for the union. Vermont assented, admit- 
ting the identical Dresden, which the president wished should 
be an independent town, but which New Hampshire had re- 
jected as a town, adopting the college and especially honoring 
Bazaleel Woodward, who was a professor in the college;"* 
and in "A public defence of the right of the New Hampshire 
Grants (so called), on both sides of Connecticut river, to 

* " He seems to have been active from the first in promoting the union of the western New 
Hampshire towns with Vermont. He represented Dresden (the college lands in Hanover) 
on the first union in 1778, and again on the second in 1781. During the second union he was 
appointed judge of probate of the district of Dresden, one of the agents to congress, and 
a judge of the superior court. His official service in Vermont of course terminated on the 
dissolution of the eastern and western unions in 1782." Note 0/ Walton, Vermont Papers, 
vol. 2, p. 144. 



23 

associate together and form themselves Into an independent 
STATE," printed at Dresden, 1779? it is said, — " In the early set- 
tlement of this country, the Rev. Dr. Wheelock's charity-school, 
founded on the most noble and benevolent basis, and incorpo- 
rated with a university by grant or patent from the King of 
Great Britain, was introduced and settled in this part of the 
country, — which we esteem an inestimable benefit and advan- 
tage to this new state, as well as to the continent, and which 
the inhabitants of this state are disposed to patronize to the 
utmost ; but, on the contrary, if it falls into the state of New 
Hampshire, it will be In a state which has heretofore (as 
such) shown a very cool disposition towards it, and probably 
will continue the same neglect of it, and principally (perhaps) 
on account of Its situation."* Some future historian will fill 
a bright page with this wonderful denouement and conse- 
quent great salvation of the people of the Grants and preserva- 
tion of the college, which would have attracted the spite of the 
enemy.f Dr. Wheelock's letters to Gov. Trumbull and to 
Washington, upon the position of the Indians in the pending 
strife, give no uncertain sound as to his loyalty to freedom. 
He gave up his scholars for soldiers, and his son as lieutenant 
colonel, under Col. Bedel of the continental army. 

Governor Benning Wentworth, perhaps under the charter 
enjoining the promotion of religion and learning, in making 
grants of townships of His Majesty's lands, reserved or gave 
one share of the seventy, into which his towns were divided, 
as a glebe for the English church, one for the society in Eng- 
land " for propagating the gospel in foreign parts," and one 
for the first settled minister, of whatever denomination he 
might be. He also saved five hundred acres for himself. This 
Hanover reservation was given to the college, we conclude. 
Whether Gov. Wentworth was the only governor in the coun- 
try who was so thoughtful and liberal, I am not at this moment 

* Pamphlet, page 51. 

f "While the war continued, however, these negotiations with the enemy were carried on 
with much address, and so successfully as to prevent any further hostilities from Canada. 
A correspondence was kept up which was known only to a few persons, and chiefly managed 
by Ethan Allen and his brother Ira Allen. While this could be done, Vermont was safe from 
attack." Vermo7it Papers, 2d vol., p. 485. 



24 

able to say. One hundred and twenty-five such townships were 
chartered in Vermont and many of the earliest towns in New 
Hampshire, with the addition of one share for the benefit of 
schools. As very few Episcopalians were found in Vermont, 
the shares given them, as well as those for the English society, 
remained unsought and waste. It was proposed to have the 
legislature sequester them for the use of Dartmouth college, 
for the purpose of promoting education in Vermont by advanc- 
ing the interests of the college. " Certain advantages were to 
be enjoyed by Vermonters at that institution and at certain 
proposed academies." The proposition failed, but parties 
sprang up all over the state to obtain the lands, and lawsuits 
continued down to 1840 about them. 

REMOVAL. HARDSHIPS AND PROGRESS. 

Dr. Wheelock, having settled the great question of the loca- 
tion of his future labors, without any great amount of prepara- 
tion for removal, plunged into the wilderness, not knowing 
what might befall him there. The miles were very long in 
those days, and there were a hundred and fifty of them to the 
grant of Governor Wentworth for his college ; and the roads 
were rough, and some of the rivers were without bridges. 
There was not a house within four miles of those great pine 
trees, standing two hundred and fifty feet above the soil, and 
not a tree of the five hundred acres had been cut down. Leb- 
anon, four miles below, had about two hundred inhabitants, and 
there were some twenty families four miles back in the town of 
Hanover. Now, look for a moment at the heroism and cour- 
age, the Christian faith, and desperation, too, of our first presi- 
dent. He had gathered large funds for his school. The 
donors were looking to him for res-ults he had encouraged 
them to expect ; he saw his expectations were to fail in Leba- 
non, Conn., and uncharitable judgment would be indulged in 
by his patrons, of his efforts, as well as of his wisdom. He 
saw, too, that his wilderness enterprise involved various disas- 
ters, and perhaps utter overthrow of his new movement. A 
long storm or flood during their journey, — a fire might start in 
their new village, or in the forest around them, and destroy 



25 

their homes and substance, — winter snows and frosts, or sum- 
mer miasmas, might more than decimate his family and people, 
as the Pilgrims were stricken at their first landing, — or he, like 
Moses of old, might die in view of the promised land, not 
being spared to do what no one else would think could be 
done. But he trusted in the arm of the Almighty, and braved 
every danger, that the great undertaking of his life might not 
fail, or confidence in his judgment be impaired. His family, 
his servants, his laborers and scholars, numbering seventy, 
with cattle and carts, furniture and clothing, with books and 
implements of husbandry and the arts, make their way wearily 
and slowly, in 1770, to the spot where now the college build- 
ings stand. Trees were felled and made into log houses, — some 
half a dozen, — with one large enough for the college dormito- 
ries and a recitation-room. Grounds were cleared ; roads were 
built ; Mink brook was made to run a corn and sawmill ; 
chapel exercises were conducted at times in the open air, classes 
formed and instructed, and the first commencement made to 
come off' in 1771, and a Master's degree conferred upon four 
young men. 

Dr. Wheelock had seen sixty winters, but never such an one 
as he endured in that of 1770-71. The storms and snows and 
cold came direct from the north pole. Snow-shoes and bus- 
kins, mittens and hand-sleds, were often the only locomotive 
means of access to the outside world, and supplies must come 
from the nearest log-house farmers, or, when teams could con- 
quer snows five feet deep, from river towns far down toward 
the sea. But there was wood enough, and fires enough, and 
pine knots enough, and enough " bean porridge hot and bean 
porridge cold," to keep the school and college up to studies, to 
their recitations and their lectures. 

Dr. Wheelock was intensely busy ; his bow was never un- 
bent. He was president of the college and preceptor of the 
school ; his eye located the site of the future college building, 
laid out the present beautiful park around which the officers of 
the college and men of business should dwell. He located the 
roads, superintended the clearing of the lands and the building 
of the bridges and mills. Hear what he says of his family and 
operations his third year : " For six months in the 3^ear I have 



26 

thirty to forty laborers, beside men In the mills, kitchen, wash- 
house, &c. ; the last year about eighty students, dependent 
and independent, beside my family, consequently large. I 
have seven yoke of oxen, tvs^enty cows ; have cleared and 
fenced fifteen acres of wheat, and have twenty acres of corn ; 
have cleared pasturing, sowed hay-seed, and girdled all the 
growth on five hundred acres. I have enclosed with a fence 
about two thousand acres of this wilderness, to restrain my 
cattle and horses. A little more than three years ago there 
was nothing here but a horrible wilderness ; now eleven com- 
fortable dwelling-houses, beside the students' house, barns, 
malt- and brew-house, shops, &c. I live in my little store- 
house ; — my family is much straitened, but cannot afford to 
build for myself." 

All these operations were in the name of the college and 
the property of the college ; he received no salary, — only his 
support. Upon his request, the governor appointed a person 
to audit his accounts. He acted as treasurer, and we hear 
little of the trustees. In his accounts for 1770, £742 were ex- 
pended " for labor, provisions, materials," &c. In 1 771, for the 
same, £859 ; for 1772, .£515, and 1773, .£1447. At the com- 
mencement this year, there were six graduates and nineteen 
honorary degrees. A three-year-old college in the woods 
conferring honorary degrees ! Only think of it ! 

INDIAN CONVERSION A FAILURE. 

Well, the Doctor had established his college and was giving 
degrees to the pious young men who were to become mission- 
aries to the Indians ; but how stood the great question of the 
conversion of the Indian he had so long labored to accomplish? 
Alas ! alas ! The Indian would not come to his school, or 
stay converted after he returned to his tribe. "My rising 
hopes," he says, in 1772, " respecting individuals, have hereto- 
fore been so sadly disappointed, and I have seen so much of 
Indian ingratitude, hypocrisy and deceit, enmity and malevo- 
lence, to their best friends and kindest benefactors, I should be 
quite discouraged, but for other considerations which press 
upon me to bear down all discouragements." He, however, 



27 

kept out his missionaries at an expense of £150 in 177^7 ^^^ 
maintained in his school all the pupils his missionaries could 
send him ; — but the difficulties were radical. There were con- 
victions of great injustice, embers of old hostilities which the 
Indian heart could not forgive ; and confidence, to any working 
amount, could not be obtained. The Revolutionary war soon 
came, and the Indians very naturally took up the fight against 
us ; — so Jiope^ as well as the Indian^ failed. The record is, that 
thirteen persons, missionaries, school-masters, and students, 
were supported more than half a century from the funds of the 
school. 

There was an element of power and success in this great 
work to which I should allude. From whence did he expect 
to get his scholars for his college.'^ The Indian might not 
come, and the log-house boys were poor. But Dr. Wheelock 
was a Connecticut man, educated at Yale, and had attained 
the very highest rank among the very learned divines of his 
state. He w^as a most eloquent preacher, and an accomplished 
teacher. His school had given him wide-spread reputation, 
and the novelty of his enterprise attracted great attention. 
The young men of Connecticut were, therefore, drawn to him, 
and also the sons of the early settlers in towns on both sides of 
the river up to the college, those towns having been settled 
mostly by Connecticut people, and incorporated by names of 
towns in Connecticut. During the first ten years, forty-two 
young men from Connecticut received degrees out of one hun- 
dred conferred during that period, Massachusetts thirty-five, 
and New Hampshire twelve, leaving twelve for Vermont and 
other states. The long and deep stretch of wilderness, north- 
west of Concord and Plymouth, prevented the young men of 
New Hampshire from a resort to Dartmouth. 

Another element of success was found in the religious features of 
the education, and very small expenses of living at the college. 
Money was high and food was low ; corn was worth three 
shillings per bushel, and beef three to four cents a pound. Dr. 
Wheelock paid his men three to four shillings a day, and ser- 
vant girls in their checkered aprons received as many shillings a 
week. He charged in his accounts five shillings per week for 
board, lodging, and washing for Indian scholars. 



28 



DAILY LABORS AND DUTIES. 

Dr. Wheelock, in his "Narrative for 1773," under date of 
October 15, says, — " To give a more clear view and conception 
of my situation, exercises, and labors in this new world, I shall 
give an account of this day^ not because there is anything 
special, more than has been common to every day, but because 
I know now what is actually before me. 

" Three men are employed in clearing land at Landaff, to 
prevent the forfeiture of that town ; one man is supposed to be 
now returning with stores from Norwich, in Conn., two hun- 
dred miles distant, with a team of six oxen, with whom I ex- 
pect one or two teams more, which are to be procured there ; 
three laborers at the mills, repairing some breaches, and fitting 
for use ; fourteen employed about my house to prepare for my 
removal there ; two employed in the college kitchen ; three 
digging cellar for the new college ; five gathering in the Indian 
harvest ; four receiving and counting brick which I bought at 
Lyme ; several at Plainfield, digging and preparing limestone 
to be burnt for a tryal^ whether a supply can be got there for 
the new college, — all necessary, and neither can be with pru^ 
dence omitted." 

On the same day, and daily, he attended chapel services, 
instructed a class, and directed the studies and counselled three 
tutors of the college, as he could not maintain professors ; also, 
looked after Moor's school, under college students. He was 
the magistrate of the whole neighborhood, but evidently had 
little business in this line, as he says he " is blessed with a 
peaceable family, diligent and orderly students, and faithful 
laborers. I have not heard a profane word spoken by one of 
my number, nor have I reason to think there has been one for 
three years past, nor do profane persons expect to be employed 
in my service, or allowed to continue here. I have found 
nothing more necessary to maintain good order and regularity 
than to show what is the law and mind of Christ, what will 
please- God and what will not." "My government is parental." 
He says, — "A number of students have done much to lessen 
their expenses the last year by turning a necessary diversion to 



29 

agreeable manual labor, and many will probably do so for 
years to come." 

CHARACTER OF THE STUDENTS. 

The whole country remote from the seaboard was filled with 
the log-houses of the first settlers. Some of them were still 
standing in my young years ; and even the honored Rev. Dr. 
Bacon, of New Haven, who is a Connecticut man, and still 
living, says his "early life was nurtured in a log house, where 
the wolf was a neighbor, and penury no stranger." Many, 
perhaps most of the students of Dr. Wheelock left log houses 
to come to the log houses at Hanover, if not by natural attrac- 
tion, certainly without aristocratic aversion, and readily ran 
along in the groove of low fare, great exposure, and hard work. 

EARLY STUDENTS. 

We will now call up a few of these young men and inter- 
view them, and see what they have to say or have said of 
themselves. 

Come, Mr. Ledyard, we have heard a great deal of your 
sailing with Capt. Cook, and travels to Kamtschatka, Tartary, 
and Egypt ; but please tell us about your year at Dartmouth. 
Well, he says he was there its first year ; that he studied the 
Indians more than anything else ; that he was so poor he could 
not pay his bills, and had become so enamored with Indian 
life and adventure, that, without a shilling in his pocket, he 
made a pine log boat, fifty feet in length and three in width, 
and with a little dried venison, paddled himself down the 
river, — totally unacquainted with the rapids, rocks, and shoals 
of that river, less stately now than then, when shrouded by 
the long line of forest trees, and filled by waters of the wilder- 
ness, — to Hartford, one hundred and forty miles. He does not 
say that his Hanover winter gave him a desire to try the cold 
of the Arctic circle, or that, having tried it, he sought the ex- 
treme heat of Africa to find the source of the Niger. But it is 
said this venturesome traveller w^as often benefited in his dan- 
gerous wanderings by his knowledge of Indian life and re- 
sources. Dartmouth's^rj-^ man was the distinguished traveller 



30 

Ledyard, who died In 1789, at the age of 38, in Cairo, Egypt, 
while waiting the departure of a caravan to Sennaar and the 
Aga.* 

In the class of 1776, we find the name of Abel Curtis, of 
whom very brief record is made by Dr. Chapman. He is 
mentioned as having been "born in Lebanon, Conn., and 
having died in Norwich, Vt., in 1783, aged 28." That " he 
died a farmer, and was also a judge of a county court." I have 
one fact concerning him, of interest to the alumni, to which I 
call your attention, hoping some one who has a taste for the 
investigation may be stirred to the work. Rev. Mr. Hazen, 
of Billerica, Mass., placed in my hands the fragment of "A 
Compend of English Grammar, being an attempt to point out 
the fundamental principles of the English Language, in a 
concise and intelligible manner : and to assist in writing and 
speaking the same with accuracy and correctness. By Abel 
Curtis. Printed at Dresden (Dartmouth college) by J. P. & 
A. Spooner, i779'" ^^-^ measuring six inches by three and a half, 
while the standard British Grammar, printed in Boston in 
1784, for the use of schools, measures seven and one half by 
four and one half inches, and numbers 281 pages. In his 
preface, he says, — "There is no treatise extant adapted to the 
genius and circumstances of the times, and fitted to young and 
vulgar capacities, which points out the fundamental principles 
of the English language concisely and Intelligibly," &c., and 
as " there is no prospect that any such performance will ap- 
pear in print, by advice," &c., "presents his Compend," &c. 
" The order may be a little new,'" &c. It is dedicated to Prof. 
Ripley, and he says " it has the approbation of several gentle- 
men of eminent characters in literature." 

I find no mention of this book in the various libraries in 
Boston, or in Brown's Book of Grammars, and I suppose, 
like its author, it died early. I wish, however, to raise the 
inquiry whether Mr. Curtis did not originate the great change 

* Our own Fessenden, of the class of 1776, in his " Lady's Monitor," thus speaks of him : 

*' Thus when our Ledyard wandered, faint and weary, 
- O'er deserts dismal, desolate, and dreary, 

No kind companion cheered his lonely way : 
Man was as savage as the beasts of prey. 
But woman's care his every want supjjlied, 
Bj' woman's tenderness his every tear was dried." 



31 

in Grammars which soon after followed, reducing the rules 
and elements of instruction to smaller proportions and greater 
simplicity, to meet the limited education of those days. 

Mr. Caleb Bingham graduated in 1782, and in 1785 he 
issued his " Young Lady's Accidence," — a primer of a book of 
74 pages, bound in boards, five inches by three, actual measure 
of the copy I have. He was in college when Curtis's Com- 
pend appeared, and graduated one year before the death of 
Curtis, and three years after the date of the Compend. 

I only suggest, further, that Mr. Curtis did not live to pro- 
tect his bantling ; and whoever will read the prefaces of the 
two little books and examine their contents, can judge of their 
kinship, and may award to the earlier much of the originality 
as well as celebrity of the latter. I think Dartmouth is enti- 
tled, in this little book of Curtis's, to much of the credit of the 
new life, simplicity, and brevity thrown into the elementary 
school-books of the few following years, when American 
authors drove out of our schools English school-books, " none 
of which," said Webster in his "Third Part," "is calculated 
particularly for American schools." 

It so happened that Dr. Wheelock took along with him to 
Hanover a man by the name of Osborn, to take charge of his 
mills. This man had four brothers, who afterwards graduated 
at the college — Benjamin in i775* The mill man, Osborn, 
wrote to Joseph Vaill, a young man of Litchfield, to come up 
to Hanover " to obtain a college education, by helping him 
tend the mills ; " and Mr. Vaill tells us how he answered the 
call. He says he "started September 28, 1772, w^ith three 
others, with packs on their backs, with an axe and one horse, 
to find their way, as best they might, 180 miles to the college 
sawmill. We found the mills down in the woods, where the 
howling of wild beasts and the plaintive notes of the owl 
added to the gloominess of the night season. We made our- 
selves bunks and filled them with straw, did our own cook- 
ing and washing," and, if you can believe it, they took in a 
boarder ! " The price paid for sawing and sticking boards was 
one dollar a thousand, and half the toll for grinding. Upon 
this income we were ourselves to live and offset the board of 
Sophomore Osborn, one of the brothers, who became our 



32 

teacher to fit us for college, and whose compensation was 
cancelled b}' his boarding with us. We were two years fitting. 
One of our number died and another returned home, but two 
others came on and filled their places," so that the mill work, 
the boarding-house, and Sophomore Osborn's support should 
not fail. Mr. Vaill entered college, and says he studied in 
his cold home with pine knots for light, walked four miles a 
day to his recitations, facing a north-west wind, and often 
breaking his own path in the new snows. " It is marvellous I did 
not freeze, as I was thinly clad." " In my junior year," he 
adds, " my health failing, the president gave me a room in the 
college, and placed under my oversight and teaching certain 
Canadian boys, who were to be taught English ; and after- 
wards I had charge of Moor's Charity School, so that I grad- 
uated only twenty dollars in debt;" and "I record my grati- 
tude to God for my unshaken resolution to persevere amidst 
all discouragements." This Benjamin Osborn, teacher of the 
sawmill boys, became a clergyman of great usefulness, and 
married the sister of Rev. Dr. Porter, of Andover Theological 
Seminary ; and Mr. Vaill was pastor at the church in Hadlyme, 
Conn., fi.fty-eight years, and died in 1850. 

Rev. Dr. Dana, one of the presidents of the college, who 
graduated in 1788, was the fortunate subject of a social arrange- 
ment which made an escape for him from all the rough life of 
the students in his day. Good old Dr. Dana, of Ipswich, 
Mass., the father of our late president, being at Lebanon, 
Conn., on a visit to his father, and finding commencement was 
at hand, took an axe in his carriage and drove up to witness 
the exercises. Being invited to dine with the Faculty, — for 
then there were Professors Smith, Ripley, and Woodward, — 
he remarked he had two sons fitted for college, but he hardly 
knew how he could sustain them. So a bargain was struck 
between Dr. Dana and Professors Ripley and Woodward, that 
the Dana lads should come into their families, and, in return, 
a daughter of each professor should board an equal time 
with him at Ipswich, — thus giving the young gentlemen 
the higher studies of college, and the young misses the more 
polished teaching and social amenities of more cultivated 
society. But we may judge of the short commons at both 



33 

places, by a letter written by the father to his son Daniel, 
saying, — " He had got together two dollars towards the pay- 
ment of his bills" ! ! 

Mr. Hidden, of the class of Prof. Adams, 1791, was born in 
Rowley, Mass. After he had learned the shoemaker's trade, 
and 'was about to be married in Gilmanton, N. H., where he 
had opened shop, being invited to attend commencement in 
company with his pastor and two or three prominent men of 
the town, who went out into the wilderness to see Gov. Went- 
worth's college, he was so delighted with the exercises and the 
young men, that he postponed his marriage, and fitted for 
college under his pastor, while working at his bench. He 
took his tools along with him, and repaired and made shoes 
till he graduated. After his first year, his biographer says, he, 
in company with another student, drove on a cow, which 
greatly diminished expenses ; and when he graduated, one 
friend gave him a guinea for his diploma, another $20 to pay 
off his bills, and a third friend gave him a graduating suit. 
(The keeping of cows by students came down to my time.) 
This man was my childhood's minister ; — gathered more than 
five hundred converts into his church, and planted other 
churches in other towns around Tamworth, N. H., where he 
labored from 1792 to 1837. -^^ ^^^ ^^'^^ ^^ ^^^ lady-love, who 
waited long for the nuptials, which took place in two months 
after ordination. 

The log-house population of the country was a marked one. 
Only the bravest and strongest young men and women dared 
to plunge into distant townships, with an ox team of furniture, 
food, and rough implements of farming, to drive back the wild 
beasts, and convert the forest hills into productive farms. 
Hard work and privation were daily duties ; but sweet sleep 
at night gave daily increasing hope and strength. Their 
children came up with healthful muscle, and minds trained to 
meet and conquer every difficulty. When these children de- 
sired an education, it was only hard work and self-denial in 
another form which they resolved to meet, as their fathers had 
met the hard life of the frontiersman. This college, in its 
externals, was on a level with these young men, and its 



34 

president was a more eminent man than then filled the chair 
of either Harvard or Yale, while the same Latin, Greek, En- 
field, and rhetoric were studies alike in all. The increase in 
the number of students, the character of the graduates for the 
first ten years, and .their great longevity — nearly half of the 
first hundred graduates having exceeded the " three score 
years and ten" — fully establish as well as illustrate the fact, 
that getting an education under such difficulties was not much 
of a calamity after all, and that woi'k^ as Dr. Wheelock taught 
his scholars, was the best of exercise. If the apothegm is true, 
" that good men are the stars of the ages in which they live, 
and illustrate their times," then Dartmouth, during her first 
half century, may well be proud of her record and her men. 

SUPPORT AND FUNDS. 

I have little precise information of individual sources of the 
funds which sustained Dr. Wheelock throughout his connec- 
tion with the school and college. His "Narratives" show 
results of collections at periods rather than individual sub- 
scriptions. He was said to have had a small patrimony, 
which he substantially preserved, but which sold for only 
<£i,ooo in 1773, when he built his house at Hanover. His 
salary had been small, and non-payment of it made it shame- 
fully less ; but his scholars and school proper undoubtedly 
brought him in the means of sustaining his low level of cur- 
rent expenses, for he seems to have abhorred debts, and would 
keep his outs and ins in pretty even scales. All aid to sustain 
his school must have been in small sums, as the gift of the 
small house and two acres of land by Mr. Moor was so won- 
drous great as to secure forever the name of the giver in con- 
nection with the college. The school did but live on its cur- 
rent means, till Whittaker and Occum created a permanent 
fund abroad.* The Moor gift was the first foundation stone 
in the whole structure which fills our admiring eyes this day. 



* Dr. Allen says, — " When his school commenced he sought in every direction, from 
individuals at home and abroad, and upon the provincial governments, the charities required 
for the support of the Indian youth. The sending of Occum to Europe was a master stroke 
of policy, although perhaps suggested by Whitefield, who had urged him to go." — Qtiar. 
Reg., 1837, p. 29. 



35 

The school was now provided for. He had felt of the pub- 
lic pnlse, and found a healthful throbbing towards his enter- 
prise, and took courage to enlarge his operations. The new 
institution soon became, in his judgment, inevitable, both to 
save him from the past, and to fill up the measure of his great 
work. 

I hardly know how to describe to you the important matter 
of getting funds for building up and running the school and 
college by the two Wheelocks, for the sixty years they presided 
over their interests and prosperity. The dollar was a very 
large coin in those days, and very few pockets could get many 
of them, and fewer could hold them any length of time. Few 
men had had time or opportunity to get rich. The early set- 
tlers were clearing lands, building roads, and paying taxes, 
and how could they give or subscribe to aid in founding a 
school or college ? "When a gift of two acres of land and a 
small house was, comparatively, so generous and large that 
the donor's name was given to the institution, as the name of 
Perkins was given to the asylum for the blind in the early 
history of modern benevolence, the common subscriptions 
would be laboriously enumerated if they could be found. 
Moor's gift was in 1753? ^i^d gave not only a name but a home 
to the school. In 1763, it w^as commended to the benevolent 
for aid by twenty-five clergymen in Connecticut ; and Connecti- 
cut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire legislatures made 
appropriations. Donations were received, also, from " the 
London commissioners in Boston," from receipts " in my 
journey to Boston, mostly from Mr. Parsons's congregation in 
Newbury ;" *' from private donations from several quarters, 
£25." The donations from November, 1763, to November, 
1764, amounted to .£258 ; and the expenses of the school and 
missionaries were not then met, by more than iCioo. In 1765, 
the great interest in the school raised his receipts to over =£550. 
Among the donors appear "from a lady in England, £100 ; 
from John Phillips of Exeter, £22 ; from churches in Salem, 
Rowley, Ipswich, Newbury, Portsmouth, York, Stratham, 
Exeter, and from various quarters." These moneys were all 
absorbed in his daily living, — no fund except Moor's. 

The indorsement of the Connecticut clergymen in 1762 



36 

served his purpose for awhile, but as his views and field 
widened, he required more impressive recognition and aid. 
Hence, in 1765? we find Dr. Wheelock obtained an expression 
of interest in the school from Gen. Gage, commander-in-chief 
of His Majesty's forces in America ; from the royal governors 
in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, 
Connecticut, and New York ; from three chief justices of differ- 
ent states, and large numbers of distinguished men in high 
official positions, and leading clergymen and civilians from 
Pennsylvania eastward. Armed with such approbation, and 
with the results of ten years' successful effort, out of debt, and 
with three missionaries in distant wigwams, and one interpre- 
ter, with eight school-masters at distances from three to five 
hundred miles, beside eighteen scholars in his school, Indian 
boys and girls. Rev. Mr. Whittaker and Oecum, in 1776, were 
sent abroad for funds, and returned with seven thousand (7,000) 
pounds sterling, deposited with a Board of Trust in London, 
for the school, and between three and four thousand pounds in 
Scotland, deposited with a Scotch society. 

COLLEGE FUNDS. 

But now a college was to be provided for. The name " Dart- 
mouth " brought no money to the college. Lord Dartmouth's 
money was in the school, and the English and Scotch friends 
looked after the school and were jealous of the college. The 
Doctor now put his foot into a financial desert, as forbidding as 
the wilderness he had chosen for his college. Gov. Benning 
Wentworth gave five hundred acres of land in Hanover, where 
the college is located, and probably the same reserved to him 
in the charter of the town. Gov. John Wentworth gave four 
hundred acres. Other land-owners gave lands to encourage 
the president to locate there, and the farmers in all that region 
subscribed labor, materials, and food ; some subscribers, how- 
ever, failed to make good their promises, from alleged inability. 
Collections of money were made from individuals far and near. 
John Phillips gave, in 1770? $35333' ^^^^ afterwards founded the 
Phillips Professorship of Theology. A list of names of emi- 
nent donors is given by Dr. Belknap, who says the income 



arising from lands amounted to £140;* and Moore & Farmer 
said, in 1823, the funds of the college amounted to $50,000, and 
the income of Moor's school to from $400 to $600 per annum. 
The state gave £110 for Dr. Wheelock's support, and £Soo in 
1773 towards the new college building, and afterwards built 
the Medical college. Gov. Wentworth had built a road, by 
authority of the legislature, from his country residence in Wolfe- 
borough to the college. 

EARLY YEARS OF HARVARD. 

We need not feel especially humbled at our early poverty 
and begging for a living, for Harvard was just as poor in her 
early days. Rev. John Harvard became the founder by giving 
half his property, between .£700 and £800, and the legislature 
granted a charter with his name as the first and great donor. 
" The commissioners of the four united colonies endeavored 
to stir up all the people in the several colonies to make a 
yearly contribution toward it, which by some is observed, 
but by the most veiy much neglected."! The school at " Newe 
Towne" became, by acts of the General Court, " Harvard 
college," at Cambridge, though " the word ' college' was not 
generally substituted for the word ' school ' immediately." 
This was then a "new world" and a new people, and the 
institutions of religion and freedom were to " live or die" 
by " working their own passage," just as every emigrant 
was doing, by hard work and low fare. The people had, ac- 
cording to the almanac of 1648, " heaps of wheat, pork, 
bisket, beef, and beer," but after church and school rates were 
paid, money for a college came hard and slow, even for 
Harvard. 

* Dr. Belknap says, — " Among the benefactors of Dartmouth college, the following names 
are conspicuous : His Majesty George III, King of Great Britain, Earl of Dartmouth, late 
Countess of Huntington, Prince of Orange, Baron of Hasarswoode, Grand Pensionary of 
the United Netherlands, Gov. B. Wentworth, Gov. John Wentworth, Paul V/entworth, Esq.; 
Dr. Rose, John Thornton, Esq., Mr. Forsyth, Dr. Ralph Griffith, of London ; John Adams, 
Vice-President United States ; John Jay, Chief Justice United States ; John Phillips, 
Exeter." 

f Sidneys Har. Grad., vol. i, p. lo. 



38 



THE FIRST PRESIDENT. 

Gentlemen, how shall I sum up the character of our won- 
derful first president? By what imagery, or in what words, 
can I fix in j^our minds an adequate expression of his colossal 
enterprises, — of his executive ability in their accomplishment, — 
of his indomitable courage and diligence to reach his mark, — of 
his great love to man and his Saviour, — of the man who, at the 
close of his life, said he was " almost ashamed to die, he had 
done so little for his Master" ? 

The gigantic face of the " Old Man of the Mountain" is seen 
only from one point, and only then does the observer find the 
prominences of the adjacent clifis in such range and com- 
bination as to form the features of the great human face, — 
different features being protuberances of different ledges of rock. 
Thus the great preacher, the Great Awakening, Moor's Charity 
School, Dartmouth college, and great zeal for the Redeemer's 
kingdom, from the start to the end, without a doubt, fear, or 
rest, — meet in mountain height and projection to form the char- 
acter of Dr. Wheelock. Those only can comprehend, can com- 
pass his greatness, who from one stand-point can take in, in one 
great w^hole, the lofty heights to which his amazing powers 
carried him, in the distinct and herculean labors of his life. 
His life-size canvas in our picture gallery is expressive of his 
superiority over the eminent men whose portraits hang upon 
the walls around him. 

I need not tell you he was a scholar. "At his graduation, he 
was the first Berkeleian scholar," says President Stiles. I need 
not tell you he was an eloquent preacher. His contemporaries 
give ample testimony of this ; and his revival tours during the 
Great Awakening place him on the lead, proclaiming to all 
communities that salvation is by faith, and not by dead forms. 
I need not repeat how, step by step, and day by day, and year 
by year, from 1746 to 1762, he obtained funds for the limited 
expenses of his school by small subscriptions among his Con- 
necticut friends, — or how he enlarged his means, often by appli- 
cations to legislatures and wealthy citizens from New York to 
New Hampshire, — or how, by his representatives Whittaker 
and Occum, spreading the fame of his school, in 1766, in 



39 

England and Scotland, he obtained funds and established a 
board of trust for his school, — or how he plunged into the 
wilderness in 1770 to meet the Indian half way, and on a 
higher grade of instruction, — or of the patient, burdensome 
labor of obtaining funds to support his college till his death, 
accomplishing so much and yet keeping his expenditures 
within his means ! We stand aghast at such exhibitions of 
faith, piety, benevolence, such heroism and hard work, and 
such wondrous power for good hitherto and for ages yet to 
come. We bless the memory and name of Wheelock, and 
trust there will yet, though late, spring up, at the bidding of 
the graduates of Dartmouth, a monument to his memory, in 
the centre of the common his own eye fashioned, and in front 
of the college " he went out into the wilderness to see," which 
shall be alike honorable to his memory and their gratitude.* 
When the future historian of the college shall give relative 
force and influence to the great educators of our beloved Zion 
and country, our first president will stand out in bold relief, as 
the strong men of the colleges shall come up for grateful 
acknowledgment. Wondrous man! "Ashamed to die," be- 
cause thou hadst done so little for thy Master ! Thy Master 
called thee. Heaven only could give thee thy rest and reward. 
Earth and time will not be ashamed of thee 1 

THE SECOND PRESIDENT. 

But I must speak of Dr. John Wheelock, the second presi- 
dent of the college. Having a brother in the Medical college 
in 18 1 5, I visited Hanover, and saw the president in his study ; 
and during my fall term in 1816, used to see him ; attended 
his funeral in 1817, and saw him in his grave dress. He was 
a gentleman of courtly mannei's, tall and erect, dignified and 
graceful. I do not wonder his personal friends clung to him 
in his trials, with lively sympathy and great pertinacity, to his 
death, or that their memory of him intensified their zeal 
in favor of the university after. He was a fair scholar and 

* Dr. Pomroy, of Hebron, Conn., who rode 170 miles to Hanover to preach his funeral 
sermon, said, — " While Dartmouth, or any of her sons remain alive, while one stone upon 
another remains of her buildings not thrown do\vn, so long shall the name and fame of Dr. 
Wheelock be remembered." 



40 

careful teacher, and exhibited great judgment in selecting his 
corps of professors and tutors during his presidency of thirty- 
six years. Eminent scholars were Professors Smith, Ripley, 
Hubbard, ShurtlefF, Adams, and Moore. Doctors Smith, 
Perkins, and Mussey were eminent surgeons, and gave life 
and growth to the Medical college from 1798 to 1838, — men 
whose praise is in all the land for great professional skill and 
learning, hallowed by the purest benevolence and social vir- 
tues. Ripe teachers made ripe pupils. The great men of the 
college, down to Choate, were started, stimulated, and fortified 
by those distinguished men. How the president could keep 
them, and how they could keep themselves, on the pittance of 
five to seven hundred dollars a year, is marvellous. 

There is very little to say of President John Wheelock. He 
was son of the first president ; had been a tutor of the college, 
and a colonel in the Revolutionary army in active service. He 
was called home from the army, on the death of his father, to 
take charge of the school and college. The charter conferred 
the power upon the president to appoint his successor, who 
should be subject to the approval of the trustees. It appears, 
by the diary of Rev. President Stiles, of Yale college, that 
though presiding over the college at the commencement in 
1779, he had not accepted, but did at a future meeting of the 
trustees, and was confirmed by the board. President Stiles 
also says he resigned in 1780, and thereupon the trustees 
immediately elected him president. He presided over both 
institutions thirty-six years, obtaining the great merit of sus- 
taining the college upon slender funds, few books, and insig- 
nificant philosophical and chemical apparatus. 

Plis corps of teachers, necessarily limited, — funds, beyond 
tuition, to be begged from house to house as it were, — buildings 
to be erected, grounds to be beautified, commencements to be 
made imposing, and the thousand plans of influence and com- 
mendation to be formed and pressed in favor of the college, — 
gave watchfulness and hard work to the president every day of 
those , long years, without leaving any tangible era or especial 
way-mark for the eulogist to say anything more than " well 
done." Tall, dignified, and graceful in manner, courteous, 
affable, and of rare conversational powers, he made strong 



41 

personal friends, and built up the young college by great zeal 
and persuasive influence in its behalf. His teachers were 
eminently successful in making ripe scholars and many dis- 
tinguished men. Short commons and industrious habits of 
study, with hard working teachers, laid firm foundations. The 
second president has glory enough in the Dartmouth cata- 
logues during his official life in saying, " These are my jewels," 
and, " in them I find my crown of glory." 

The second Wheelock lost his presidency by removal. 
True, perhaps too true. It was not caused by incompetency, 
nor by neglect of duty or change of religious opinion, but 
simply to rid the board and college of the family dynasty. 
The first Wheelock made it a family college. He could hardly 
do otherwise. The whole enterprise was so burdened with 
doubt and hard work, that none but members of his family 
seemed disposed to take tickets in his lottery. The trustees 
gave little attention to the affairs of the college under the 
first president. He was sustained in the financial department 
by English and Scotch funds, and the direction of its physi- 
cal life lay in the hands of confiding friends and members 
of his own family. The college and school seemed to him 
to be his, — creations of his own ; and the second president, 
with power by charter and birthright, naturally enough, 
thought he and his friends should shape and control its destiny. 
His long service to build up and sustain the college, moved 
and influenced by the daily prayer which President Stiles 
says he used, — "Thou knowest, O Lord, that thy servant has 
no sinister end, and no other motive than thy glory respecting 
this school," — gave religious integrity and zeal to his efforts 
to maintain his administration over the college. He could 
not admit impeachment of counsels which had so success- 
fully prevailed for forty years. It was a long and difficult 
task to supplant individual power, and establish an indepen- 
dent government. The controversy in the church upon the 
introduction of Prof. Shurtleff' was not a matter of religious 
faith, or hardly of government, but simply to separate the 
Hanover branch from the Hartford members, who were in the 
majority. The first president, though a Congregationalist by 
all his Puritan blood and by the separatist tenacity, allowed 



42 

Occum to become a Presbyterian, perhaps for better success 
abroad, as it certainly proved a power in his success ; and 
though he built his church at Hanover under the name and kind 
of connection with the Presbyterian church, he was Congrega- 
tional, and his son, the second president, after him. The 
internal government was Congregational, by deacons and 
church meetings of the brethren for business, not elders and 
sessions ; the names w^ere synonymous, but the administration 
was marked independency. This w^as a controversy of several 
years, and developed the danger of permanent family dominion 
over the institutions. 

It was quite natural that the second president should wish to 
surround the college with the influence and friendships of the 
family, and that a majority of the board of trust, and even of 
the faculty, should abide in harmony with the old regime. 
The father had long been a leader in the great enterprises of 
his life, and the elements of commander, and even dictator, 
not offensively so, but in full conviction of right and necessity, 
had marked his administration ; and it was not passing strange 
that the son, taking the father's mantle by sonship as well as 
by charter, should claim all its power as well as its position. 
Overruled by the board and nettled by loss of power, he 
brought obnoxious charges against the trustees, which led to 
explanations amounting to recrimination, and thus the breach 
of confidence and respect became in time so serious that it 
culminated in his removal by the trustees in 1815. I state the 
fact. I do not criticize those proceedings. That great honesty 
of sentiment guided both parties is most clear ; but the transfer 
of personal to public power is sometimes obtained only by 
successful battle. The president believed in his plans and 
influence in behalf of the college. But the trustees preferred 
to give it a more public character and greater independence.* 

* Any graduate, desirous to trace the line of controversy in the change of the Wheelock 
dynasty, will find the extended history, running through nearly twenty years, in the 
" Sketches of the history of Dartmouth college and Moor's Charity School, with a particular 
account of some remarkable proceedings of the Board of Trustees, from the j'ear 1779 to 
the year 1815" — a pamphlet of 88 pages; and the answer to it, "A Vindication," &c., 
published by the trustees the same year — a pamphlet of 104 pages. Both are now very rare. 
The first is without author or imprint ; but the introduction states, — " We are indebted to 
President Wheelock for the facts, and their substance may be relied on as true." 



43 



LEGISLATIVE ACTION. 

When I entered in 1816, President Brown was in possession 
of the college buildings, with Professors Shurtleff and Adams, 
and tutors Henry Bond and William White, both of the class 
of 1 8 13. In the Medical college were Professors Perkins and 
Mussey. There were about one hundred and twenty-five 
students in college. Some of the trustees, the treasurer, Mr. 
Woodward, and Dr. Perkins, \vere in sympathy with the late 
president. The trustees who had voted for his dismissal were 
in political sympathy with the then Republican party, but the 
Democratic party was in the ascendancy. Dr. Wheelock and 
his friends appealed to the legislature for redress. A com- 
mittee was sent by the legislature to inquire into the matter 
and report. The trustees met the committee and "frankly ex- 
hibited every measure of theirs which had been a subject of 
coinplaint, and all the resources of the institution, as far as 
their knowledge would admit." The matter stirred up great 
political excitement throughout the state, so that the legislature 
of 181 6, with less discretion than passion, passed acts to amend 
the charter of Dartmouth college, increasing the number of 
trustees so as to give a majority friendly to Dr. Wheelock's 
party, appointing a board of overseers, making teaching by 
officers not authorized by the new board subject to a large fine, 
and changing the name to Dartmouth university. 

THE TWO INSTITUTIONS. 

The university board of trustees met and appointed Rev. 
William Allen, Dr. Wheelock's son-in-law, president ; James 
Dean and Nathaniel H. Carter were appointed professors. 
President Allen took possession of the college buildings and 
library, and Mr. Woodward, treasurer of the college, held its 
papers and funds for the use of the university. Some ten or 
twelve students left the college classes and went over to the 
university. President Brown procured the use of a hall at the 
west end of the college building, over Stewart's hat store, for 
a chapel, and kept his faculty and students at their teaching 
and study as if nothing had happened. The two Institutions 



44 

now moved on quite harmoniously. The scholars remained 
friendly, and the officers were mutually respectful. Both 
presidents were remarkable for genial dispositions and cour- 
teous manners, noble Christian gentlemen, and were fully 
impressed with the sharp and serious conflict before them. We 
all followed the one bell ; and for two long years a hundred or 
more students were crossing the plain, at every ringing of the 
bell, to their chapel and various recitation-rooms, while a 
dozen university students were crossing our paths in other 
directions, giving ample opportunity to crack a joke and chaff 
each other. 

THE LAWSUIT IN N. H. COURTS. 

A suit was in due time instituted by the old board against 
Mr. Woodward, in Grafton county, charging him with the 
conversion of the funds, seal, and records of the college, at the 
February term of the court of common pleas, and, by arrange- 
ment, it was appealed and continued to the September term at 
Exeter of the superior court. At this court it was argued by 
Messrs. Smith, Mason, and Webster for the college, and by 
Messrs. Sullivan, attorney-general, and Ichabod Bartlett for 
the university. At the November term, 1817, Chief Justice 
Richardson gave the opinion of the court against the college. 
The cause was then taken by writ of error to the February 
term, 181S, of the supreme court of the United States, at Wash- 
ington. During the interim between the decision of the state 
court and final judgment in the supreme court, great excite- 
ment existed throughout the state, among professional men 
and politicians, and various events transpired worthy of recog- 
nition and preservation, as skirmishes incident to the great 
battle. 

SEIZURE OF LIBRARY. 

The acts of the legislature and confirmation by the state 
court gave great assurance to the university, but did not es- 
pecially weaken the confidence of the trustees of the college 
in the final result. Both parties, therefore, stood on their good 
behavior at Hanover, but not inclined to waive any admitted 



45 

or supposed right. The university had gained no legal right 
under the state court to make further reprisals, nor were the 
college trustees disposed to surrender any of their possessions. 
The society libraries became at once a matter of great interest 
to both parties. The university had possession of the college 
library (not a very inviting collection for the students at that 
time), and the students of both institutions were using the 
society libraries. These libraries were not incorporated, had 
been instituted and built up by taxes and subscriptions of 
students during many years, and were now indispensable on 
the part of the college students. The right of possession or 
property even, in the college or university, was a matter of 
doubt, and the right of the majority of acting members over 
individual members was not even clear. A further difficulty 
was also involved in the fact that officers and students in both 
institutions had equal individual rights. The loss of these 
libraries to the college students would have been disastrous, if 
not fatal, as the students could not remain w^ithout books, and 
libraries of two thousand volumes each could not be as readily 
extemporized as the chapel had been. 

These libraries were in rooms in the second story, over both 
front entrance doors of the college building. One evening, 
while the society of the United Fraternity was in session near 
the Social's library, Professors Dean and Carter, with a couple 
of strong workmen of the place, broke down the door of the 
Social's library. The noise aroused the Fraters, who rushed 
up to the library just as the party had entered it, having taken 
along with them sticks of wood which lay in the hall, and soon 
terrified the assailants into submission and surrender. The 
professors and men were at once removed to a room near the 
library (then No. 12), and detained there, until the students, 
who had been summoned by the bell, had removed all the 
books of both libraries to private residences on the plain. 
When this had been accomplished, four students were assigned 
to each professor and each man to escort them safely home, 
that we might have evidence of their safe return without mo- 
lestation from any person, which could be charged to us. I 
accompanied Prof. Dean to his lodgings in the house of Dr. 
Perkins, where Prof. Sanborn now resides. We said nothing 



46 

to him, nor was conversation allowed in the room where they 
were detained, that we might not be charged with insult or 
discourtesy beyond the mere detention. When we had put the 
professor within the door, he turned, raised his hat, and thanked 
us ; we raised our hats also, and bade him good-night. We 
had a merry hour, afterwards, all over the plain, in shouts and 
all possible noises, without any interference of the faculty, 
although the short hours of the morning had arrived. 

COURT.— GRAND JURY.— " NO BILL." 

Well, we still had possession of the books, and they had 
failed to secure them ; and although -possession was regarded 
equal to " nine points in law," some of the students were, in a 
few days, arrested, and taken before Democratic justices of the 
peace, and bound over to the grand jury in the sum of $150, 
for the trespass and false imprisonment of the professors ; and 
the library trespassers in turn were brought before Republican 
magistrates, who bound them over to the same grand jury in a 
like sum. Partisan feeling fermented and boiled and spread 
all over the state ; but when the court came, as it did in Haver- 
hill in May, I need only to name the lawyers who attended 
that term for you to understand why both parties were respect- 
fully heard before the jury, and why, as the court and bar knew 
the main issue had been taken up to the supreme court, the 
smaller and incidental questions were considered of little con- 
sequence. The grand jury found " no bill" in all the com- 
plaints, and we went back to our studies. 

DISTINGUISHED MEN AT COURT. 

At this term the great lawyers of the state were in attend- 
ance, — George Sullivan, attorney-general. Judge Smith, Jere- 
miah Mason, Ezekiel Webster, Judge Fletcher, Joseph Bell, 
Josiah Qiiincy, Parker Noyes, and Moses P. Payson, Britton, 
Olcott, and Gilbert, men learned in the law, acute in special 
pleading, and of great power in argument to court and jury ; — 
some of them were and remained peerless in the profession. 
Mr. Sullivan had argued the case for the university at Exeter, 
and Mason and Smith for the college. The same court, — 



47 

Chief Justice Richardson, with Bell and Woodbury, associate 
justices, — presided, who had given an opinion in favor of the 
university. The great question, whether the legislature of the 
state, sustained by its highest court, would or would not triumph 
at Washington, was the all-absorbing discussion, and no one 
wished to mingle with it any local friction incidental to inferior 
operations like our library questions. Few of us boys had 
ever been in the high court, and none of us had seen or heard 
such giants of the law. It was the day when inventors and 
schemers, as they were sarcastically called, were indulging in 
visions of hot air pressure and steam power for propelling 
boats, and all arrangements of high pressure and low pressure, 
size, shape, and strength of cylinders, which led to more ex- 
periments than successes, and to some suits among interested 
parties. I remember how amused we were, in a logical, scien- 
tific, and powerful argument of Mr. Mason, upon one of those 
issues before the court, during which he sallied off in a torrent 
of sarcasm upon the pretence of the party that he had made 
some superior application of steam or hot air, "when," said 
Mr. Mason, " every old woman in the country had always 
known of the current of hot air up her kitchen chimney, car- 
rying off all smoke and odor of her cooking ; and that her 
tea-kettle always increased in steam in its nose the more burn- 
ing chips she had under it." Judge Smith was then under 60 ; 
Mr. Mason, 50 ; Mr. Sullivan, 44, and Mr. Webster, 37. I do 
not now call to mind a lawyer of that term of the court who 
has not passed from earth, — Mr. Quincy having just deceased 
at the age of 90. 

STUDENTS VOTING AND TRAINING. 

It was found on looking at the statutes that the students who 
were of age could vote. It had not been claimed. But now 
there was a strong desire that Hanover should send a repre- 
sentative who would promote the interests of the college as far 
as it could be done in a legislature largely in favor of the 
university. A rally was therefore made at the March meeting ; 
and while only a few could claim a ballot, a large number of 
students went out to the town-meeting to insure protection and 
fair play. The students were allowed to vote, and quiet 



48 

reigned at Warsaw. TIt-for-tat, however, was the order of the 
times, and as soon as the May training came round, we found 
ourselves enrolled in the militia, and warned " to appear on 
parade at East Hanover, armed and equipped according to 
law, at nine of the clock A. M.," — a measure just as unheard of 
as the matter of voting. We thought we could get a day's fun 
out of it, but we had neither guns, knapsacks, nor canteens. 
Non-appearance would subject us to a penalty. Appearance 
without equipments would bring upon us various little fines 
we did not care to bear. We found, however, a provision of 
military law, that if the soldier was unable to furnish himself 
with the required equipments, he might apply to the selectmen 
for a supply; and, if not furnished by them, upon his appear- 
ance on parade without them, fines should not be imposed. 
We all applied for arms, but none came. We appeared at 
roll-call, and took our assigned place in the ranks at the tail 
end of the company. But we could not march to their music. 
We knew our college songs, and could keep time to them ; but 
the di'Ufn and Jife, the time and tramp, were too much for us — 
worse to learn than Greek ; as bad as vulgar fractions or En- 
field. When the captain, up at the head of the company, cried 
out " halt," we crowded up all around him to see what he 
wanted or what he was going to do, disturbing all rank and 
file, and getting up a general melee. The captain then took a 
new departure and re-formed his company, placing one old 
soldier and one student in succession ; but this involved 
individual bickering, and appeals to the captain to settle the 
question whether a soldier should apologize for stepping on 
the heel of the student forward of him, to the great hindrance 
of military improvement by interposing so much complaint 
and discipline. We had an hour for dinner, and when it was 
over we began to apply for relief from the afternoon sei'vice on 
account of various illnesses which were alleged, and so persist- 
ently insisted on, one after another, and so much time was 
consumed, that he dismissed his company, and we returned to 
the Plain with colors flying, having had a tramp of hf^'f a 
dozen miles and a jolly day. "' 



49 

HIGHWAY TAXES. 

Our voting joke did not end in our military overture, for we 
w^ere soon notified to work our tax upon the highway ! We 
found we had twelve hours each, and the highway led from 
the college towards East Hanover, up the hill where Mr. Balch 
lately lived. The surveyor was friendly to us ; and, having 
raised a few hoes and shovels, out we went in squads of half a 
dozen, each of us having agreed to work for the other five, 
reducing our twelve to two hours ; and at the end of the two 
hours, each rendered his account to the surveyor in this form : 
" I have worked two hours, and have had five others working 
for me two hours each." So the tax was crossed off, and we 
returned to our rooms again. We did work well the two 
hours, however, and all parties seemed satisfied with the idea 
that a legal fraud was not always a moral fraud, and that there 
could be damnum absqtte injuria, 

POSSESSION OF THE CHURCH. 

As we approached commencement in 1818, great anxiety 
sprang up about the church in which the public exercises were 
accustomed to be held. Both parties seemed equally determined 
to have it. It had been built by the friends of the college, and 
individuals and citizens on both sides owned pews in it. Legal 
rights were, therefore, as in case of the libraries, again in doubt. 
It was understood that men of education and politicians would 
come to swell the strength of both interests, as indicative of 
l^ublic opinion. There were military men, too, on the Plain, 
who threatened to bring in the militia, if necessary, to give 
the church to the university, as having a -prima facie right, 
although the college had occupied it as of old. Earlier than 
usual the people began to pour in, and the town became 
crowded and intensely excited. Well, to be short about it, 
students of the college volunteered to take possession of the 
church the day before, and keep it till the procession should 

^ter. We made no secret of our doings in our mode of de- 

^^,xe against any attempt to expel us from it. We carried up 

st( nes and placed them in the belfry and at the upper windows, 

rei dy to be cast down upon any assailing party, and a man at 

4 



50 

every lower window with a sufficient cane or club to prevent 
any scaling party ; and thus the night and day were spent, down 
to the hour of entrance of the procession, and Hanover witnessed 
two commencements in church and chapel on the same day 
and hour. Professors Bush, Chamberlain, Upham, Grosvenor, 
and twenty-four others, took degrees. I cannot now remember 
how many degrees were conferred in the university, or what 
their exercises were, except that an eulogy upon the second 
president. Dr. John Wheelock, was delivered by Hon. S. C. 
Allen, of Massachusetts. 

DECISION AT WASHINGTON. 

The autumn term and winter, before the decision at Wash- 
ington, passed without any special trouble or excitement ; offi- 
cers and students were at their posts of instruction and study, — 
comparative numbers remaining about the same, and want of 
funds bringing great anxiety in all directions. The cause had 
been argued in March, 1818, at Washington, and in February, 
1819, the opinion was given by Chief Justice Marshall in favor 
of the college, only Judge Duval dissenting. Under date of 
February 2, Mr. Webster wrote President Brown, in his pecul- 
iar, sententious style, — "All is safe and certain. The chief 
justice delivered an opinion this morning, in our favor on all 
the points. I give you my congratulations on this occasion, 
and assure you I feel a load removed from my shoulders much 
heavier than they have been accustomed to bear ;" — and to his 
brother Ezekiel, of the same date, — " It leaves not an inch of 
ground for the university to stand on." Mr. Hopkinson, the 
same day, wrote to President Brown, — " The court goes all 
lengths with us, and, whatever trouble the gentlemen may give 
us in future, they cannot shake those principles which must 
and will restore Dartmouth college to its true and original 
owners. I would have an inscription over the door of your 
building, — ' Founded by Eleazer Wheelock. Re-founded by 
Daniel Webster.'" 

I find, in a letter which I wrote at the time to a friend, and 
which was returned to me after his death, this description of 
the scene which followed the arrival of the news at Hanover : 
"The expressions of joy are excessive. The officers entreated 



51 

the Inhabitants repeatedly to desist, but to no purpose. In 
Norwich the shoutings were very great, and in most of the 
towns In the vicinity. The students are much rejoiced In heart 
at the good fortune, without any public expressions of It." 

The correspondence of Mr. Webster with President Brown 
and Mr. Mason, shows that the decision of the supreme court 
was certified back to the U. S. circuit court for judgment. 
In that court, a motion might still be made to introduce new 
facts, and in the discretion of the court a new trial might be 
granted. New facts were presented by Mr. Austin, of Boston, 
to Justice Story, and the motion was by him overruled, and 
judgment rendered in June, In Portsmouth, for the college. 

Notwithstanding this delay In legal proceedings, my letter 
says the officers of the college had taken possession of the 
chapel and all the rooms In the college, though the keys had 
been refused by President Allen, upon demand by President 
Brown, and that the students had been cautioned not to enter 
the library, even if the doors were opened, that Mr. Allen 
might be held responsible for the books. Professors Dean, 
Carter, and Searle had already disappeared, and it was an- 
nounced that Dr. Perkins would go to Boston ; that six of the 
students had come back to us, and others had disappeared. 

The college had been saved from her judicial perils, and her 
chartered foundations established ; but the terrors of poverty 
and a wide-spread opposition hovered over her future. Thank 
God, her perilous night gave way to a morning of hope and 
a day of increasing beauty and splendor. 

MR. WEBSTER'S ARGUMENT. 

I must not let this opportunity pass unimproved to revive 
the extraordinary power and brilliant display of Mr. Webster 
before the supreme court in Washington. Of the great ex- 
hibitions of Mr. Webster's wondrous power, — the Dartmouth 
college case in Washington, the argument to the jury In the 
Knapp murder trial in Salem, the speech in the U. S. senate 
in answer to Hayne, and the GIrard will case, — the college 
effort stands first and most remarkable of all. The subject 
and the occasion, the Interest and the responsibility so personal 



52 

and absorbing, made full draft upon his great energies. This 
was in iSiS, at Washington, in the great court of the nation, 
with Chief Justice Marshall at the head of a court, — unrivalled, 
before or since, in character and dignity, — with the great law- 
yers of the country In attendance, ^vlth men of learning look- 
ing on, anxious as to the foundation and fate of the eleemosy- 
nary Institutions of the country ; the room was small, and the 
elile of the city had crowded In. Mr. Webster was to break 
down the legislation of a state, and the judgment of the high- 
est court of that state, or the college, his alma mater^ was to 
be throttled and changed. Well, how did he meet the expecta- 
tions or fears of the great minds and throbbing hearts assem- 
bled there to witness his utterings? I give you, no\v, the 
description of Prof. Goodrich, of Yale college, who went to 
Washington to hear the arguments, and was present. He 
says (I quote from Brown's Life of Choate) : 

" Mr. Webster entered upon his argument in the calm tone 
of easy and dignified conversation. His matter was so com- 
pletely at his command that he scarcely looked at his brief, 
but went on for more than four hours with a statement so 
luminous, and a chain of reasoning so easy to be understood, 
and yet approaching so nearly to absolute demonstration, that 
he seemed to carry with him every man of his audience, with- 
out the slightest effort or uneasiness on either side. I observed 
Judge Story sit, pen in hand, as if to take notes. Hour after 
hour I saw him fixed in the same attitude ; but I could not 
discover that he made a sins'le note, t'he arg-ument ended. 
Mr. Webster stood for some moments silent before the court, 
while every eye was fixed intently upon him. At length, ad- 
dressing Chief Justice Marshall, he said, — 

" '•This^ sir^ is my case. It is the case, not merely of that 
humble Institution, it Is the case of every college in our land. 
It Is more. It is the case of every eleemosynary institution 
throughout our country, of all those great charities founded by 
the piety of our ancestors to alleviate human misery, and scat- 
ter blessings along the pathway of human life. It Is more. 
It is, in some sense, the case of every man who has property 
of which he may be stripped, — for the question is simply this ; 
Shall our state legislature be allowed to take that which is not 
their own, to turn it from its original use, and apply it to such 
ends or purposes as they, in their discretion, shall see fit? Sir, 
you may destroy this little institution : it is weak ; it is in your 
hands ! I know it Is one of the lesser lights In tlie literary 



53 

horizon of our country. You may put it out : but if you do, 
you must carry through your work ! You must extinguish, 
one after another, all those great lights of science, which, for 
more than a century, have thrown their radiance over the land ! 
It is, sir, as I have said, a small college, and yet there are those 
that love it ' 

" Here the feelings which he had thus far succeeded in keep- 
ing down, broke forth. His lips quivered ; his firm cheeks 
trembled with emotion ; his eyes wxre filled with tears ; his 
voice choked, and he seemed struggling to the utmost, simply 
to gain the mastery over himself which might save him from an 
unmanly burst of feeling. I will not attempt to give you the few 
broken words of tenderness in which he went on to speak of 
his attachment to the college. The whole seemed to be min- 
gled with the recollections of father, mother, brother, and all 
the privations through which he had made his way into life. 
Every one saw that it was wholly unpremeditated, — a pressure 
on his heart which sought relief in words and tears. 

*' The court-room during these two or three minutes pre- 
sented an extraordinary spectacle. Chief Justice Marshall, 
with his tall, gaunt figure bent over as if to catch the slightest 
whisper, the deep furrows of his cheek expanded with emo- 
tion, and eyes sufflised with tears ; Mr. Justice Washington at 
his side, with his small and emaciated frame, and countenance 
more like marble than I ever saw on any other human being, 
leaning forward with an eager, troubled look ; and the remain- 
der of the court at the two extremities, pressing, as it were, 
toward a single point, while the audience below were wrap- 
ping themselves round in closer folds beneath the bench to 
catch each look, and every movement of the speaker's face. . . 
.... There was not one among; the strong-minded men of 
that assembly who could think it unmanly to weep, when he 
saw standing before him the man who had made such an argu- 
ment melted into the tenderness of a child. 

" Mr. Webster having recovered his composure, and fixed 
his keen eye upon the Chief Justice, said, in that deep tone 
with which he sometimes thrilled the heart of an audience, — 

" ' Sir, I know not how others may feel (glancing at the 
opponents of the college before him, some of whom were its 
graduates), but, for myself, when I see my alma mater sur- 
rounded, like CcEsar in the senate house, by those who are 
reiterating stab upon stab, I would not, for this right hand, 
have her turn to me and say, — et tii quoque tnijilil — and thou 
too^ ?7iy son I* 

" He sat down : there was a death-like stillness throughout 
the room for some moments : every one seemed to be slowly 



54 

recovering himself, and coming gradually back to his ordinary 
range of thought and feeling." 

Mr. Webster was then 36 years of age, about midway of his 

distinguished life, and midway the life of the college. Mr. 

Choate graduated the next year, just fifty years from the date 

of the charter. 

PRESIDENT BROWN. 

President Brown filled the last five years of the first fifty, 
and although engrossed in the gr^at lawsuit, he left an indeli- 
ble mark on the college parchment, equal to the signature of 
John Hancock to the Declaration of Independence. The 
treasury was empty, and the controversy was sweeping over 
the state like a tornado ; but qidetly and calmly he took the 
chair, and, though asked to preside over another college where 
honor and reward were inviting, his eye and hand were fixed 
on the one purpose of defending the rights of chartered insti- 
tutions, for the encouragement of benevolence and learning. 
His consecration to the defence of the college was entire and 
untiring ; his personal entreaty and influence riveted the friends 
of the college to both its support and defence. It was said of 
him, that he so thoroughly informed himself upon the law, the 
equity, and the vast responsibilities of the question, that he ener- 
gized the great advocates in the case. He braved the storm 
and fought the fight. He triumphed ; — but worn and exhaust- 
ed, he fell, in great purity and renown. In the words of 
another, — " President Brown was commanding in his person, 
afiable in his manners, and exceedingly dignified in his whole 
bearing. His mind was of a very high order — profound, com- 
prehensive, and discriminating. He presided over the college 
with great wisdom, dignity, and kindliness, and the students 
loved and honored him as a father. His whole character, — 
intellectual, moral, and Christian,^was beautiful." My recol- 
lection of him fills a chapter of very loving memories. Such 
beaming, winning eyes, such affectionate counsels, such earnest 
religious influence as he impressed upon us, produced in us 
great love and submission to his wishes. We were all on our 
good behavior, for our proficiency and bearing were watched 
by friend and foe of the college. The president had only to 



55 

intimate his wishes, for us to carry them out. But he was wise 
and unobtrusive in his communications to the students. Prof. 
Chamberlain was his unseen private secretary, his confidant 
and organ, who had also individuals in the different classes 
through whom any suggestions or plans were quietly promul- 
gated and promoted. Mr. Olcott and Mr. Lang, Dr. Mussey 
and Dr. Alden, Deacon Dewey and Deacon Long, with the 
professors Adams and Shurtleff, were supporting pillars to 
the president in holding the opposition in Hanover in a com- 
fortable state of quiet. President Brown, in his five years, 
sent out the accomplished scholars Haddock, James Marsh, 
Fiske, Bush, Prof. Upham, Prof. Chamberlain, Choate, and 
Geo. P. Marsh, j^2/r presidents of colleges, and the mission- 
aries Temple and Goodell. 

BENEVOLENCE OF A PERIOD. 

I have accomplished in these collected historical facts and 
my own reminiscences, my desire to place before you certain 
events which are fast fading away, as the actors in them have 
mostly been starred upon our triennial. They cover only the 
first fifty years, from the wilderness to Choate ; and beyond a 
few other thoughts, I shall not further ask your attention. 
During the first thirty years of this century, the Protestant 
world was awakened to new spiritual, educational, and me- 
chanical life and progress. Missions to the heathen nations, 
home evangelization, religious newspapers, Sunday-schools, 
literary clubs and lyceums, were being inaugurated. The 
press was aroused to new effort and power. Steamboats and 
railroads, manufactures and the arts, were being established ; 
the ignorant, the poor, the sick, the blind, the insane, the 
intemperate, the criminal, came up as never before for sympa- 
thy and relief. Commerce and agriculture, mineral fields and 
labor-saving inventions, were creating individual \vealth, all 
tending to and resulting in creating a multitude of benevolent 
societies, and opening wide the avenues of doing good to 
others, and of loving one's neighbor in new and ever enlarging 
ways and processes. 

Martin and Mills prayed for the " heathen in their blindness," 
and the American Board sprung up to send the gospel. 



56 

Gallaudet taught the blind to read, and Perkins built an asy- 
lum for them. Edwards called attention to the intemperance 
of the land, and societies were formed for its suppression. 
Dwight aroused the people for better prisons, Garrison for 
purer freedom, and Mann for more general education. The 
religious denominations quickened their energies, in their 
various ways of enlargement, influence, and support. Love to 
God and man seemed to be getting the better of mammon, so 
that dying men gave portions of their accumulations to hospi- 
tals, asylums, churches, and schools. " Freely ye have received, 
freely give," became a living principle. Bartlett poured out 
his treasures on Andover. The rich men of Boston filled the 
treasury at Cambridge as often as nev^r w^ants were made 
known, and sent their cash drafts back into country towns to 
establish churches and schools, as their local attachments gave 
preference. Old colleges were provided with means of en- 
largement, and new ones established. Such wondrous giving 
of money for every human benefit or want, as the last fifty 
years has chronicled all over New England, was never known. 
And now, the rule and expectation is so general, that, when a 
man of wealth dies, the first question is. What has he given in 
charity ? 

Dartmouth's sons have remembered their alma mater^ and 
other persons have favored her, till her buildings are largely 
increased, her facilities in all departments of learning greatly 
multiplied and perfected, her days of poverty and short com- 
mons forgiven as well as forgotten, with a more learned and 
successful president, and a larger and more learned corps of 
teachers than ever before known, and with an ever-increasing 
honor and power of her graduates. 

I am happy thus to have paid my tribute of grateful affection 
to my college, and to be able thus to bear my testimony to her 
achievements ; — and, in closing, let me adopt the words of 
Abel Curtis, of the class of 1776, who, in the dedicatory ad- 
dress of his "Compend of English Grammar," in 1779, prayed 
that " Moor's Charity School might greatly flourish, till the 
sun and moon shall cease to shine." 

Errata. — On page 43, loth line from top, and on page 46, i6th line from top, for 
"Republican" read Federal. 
























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